The Enemy Has The Move
by mitzirocker
Summary: Marik has beaten and killed the Pharaoh. But Yami's not the only one who can save the world. Non-yaoi. AU. DISCONTINUED
1. Prologue: Dusk

Hi there! Welcome to my very first story on . Hope ya like it!

Story Notes: AU, splitting from canon around the end of season 2 in the anime. To clarify, Yami vs Marik has been started on the Doomship, which is still hovering over Domino. Also, it's getting broadcasted live worldwide on the Card Game Channel. Because this way Kaiba can show off his new technology. Some pairings, all of which are het.

Disclaimer: Yu-Gi-Oh belongs to the awesomeness that is Kazuki Takahashi. The Marik-wins idea was inspired by an epic and severly underrated fic called Sakakku. Check it out!

The Enemy Has The Move

Prologue: Dusk

"Welcome back to the finals of the Battle City Tournament!" On the screens in the city, rows of data appeared above the announcer's head. "Here's what you missed! After the last quarter-final, previously unknown duelist Ishtar Malik challenged the reigning champion, Mutou Yugi, to the first of the semi-finals. Kaiba Seto," a close-up of the man giving his ultimatum appeared in a box in the corner of the screen, "at first declined this, but after Ishtar threatened to drop out, he agreed. It's very windy up here, but that isn't stopping these two!"

As the announcer continued to jovially recap for the viewers, Mazaki Anzu huddled her windbreaker closer. It really was windy up on the blimp. But Kaiba had been planning this final for ages. At the suggestion of landing, he had growled and told them that the only way off now was to jump off, which, by the way, they were quite welcome to do.

She turned her head to where the boys watched the duel avidly, cheering Yami on. After she'd got tired, she had handed cheerleader duty over to them. Ryuji's chant could use some work, she observed, but Honda had his timing to an art. _Better start cheering again soon_, she thought. _Soon._

Briefly, she wondered where Shizuka had got to. Then she shrugged it off; she was probably using the facilities or something. Or checking on Mai and Rishid. Or looking for Bakura. She worried about him for a moment, but then passed it off with the thought that he was probably okay. The Ring-Spirit didn't want him dead, after all.

Oh, there she was. Shizuka waved from behind the platform, and went back to watching the duel. She had just been out of her line of sight, was all.

_Then again, I will have to give her a lesson in Duel Watching Etiquette later. I mean, this is what? Her fourth, fifth chance to watch it? She should know by now that you _don't wave_._

Three people were just standing around. Kaiba was one, watching the world through his frosty glare, as usual, and occasionally stopping Mokuba from falling over the rail. Ishizu was standing straight up and staring at the duelists. Or through the duelists, which was what it looked more like.

_Probably seeing the future or something. _Which was odd, since she didn't have the Tauk anymore-

_Tauk. Sennen. Puzzle. Yugi. Yami. Duel. Cheering._

_Frack._

"Go Yugi! Go, go Yugi! You can do it, Yugi! Go go Yugi!" Not her best cheer, but easy to do quickly. Having done that, she checked what was actually happening in the duel to see if she could make up a cheer based off his current situation.

She gasped in surprise and shock.

Malik – _Marik_, she mentally corrected herself – had summoned a God Card. The Sun Dragon Ra unfolded itself and sent out a great big fireball at the Black Magician. The Magician was strong. The Sun Dragon was stronger. It blew away the Magician's ashes.

Anzu had seen a few battles with God Cards, and the one thing they all had in common was that when they were summoned correctly, the summoner had as good as won. _But Yami can beat him_, she thought. _What about the Sky Dragon? He'll get that, surely. Then he'll destroy the Sun Dragon, and in turn, Marik. He'll win. He always wins._

_Right?_

Five monsters on the field. All fell to the Sun Dragon. Yami frantically played card after card, but he couldn't stop the Sun Dragon. Anzu kept hoping that Yami would draw the Sky Dragon and he would win and the world would be saved. But the card must have been too low in the deck, for as the Sun Dragon prepared to blast his life points Yami closed his eyes as if to accept his fate.

It was about then that Anzu fully realised just how screwed they were.

He couldn't win, but maybe he could still be saved. Yes, yes, maybe he could, maybe she could take the fireball… But then barriers of transparent black licked over the arena, and she realised that Marik wasn't letting his prey go again.

As the fireball streaked down and hit Yami on the head, she thought she saw the two Yugis, one in front of the other, protecting the other, before the fire licked around them, hiding them from view. Then the LP counter hit 0, and Marik began to laugh.

The laughter echoed all around the blimp. It was hideous, insane, inhuman.

Anzu buried her head in her knees, sobbing her heart out.

Honda just stood there, blinking, like he couldn't believe it was true.

Jounouchi tried to climb atop the platform and duke it out with Marik. Shizuka dragged him back.

"There's nothing you can do, big brother. I don't want you to die."

Ryuji howled at the sky, at the storm, daring it to make anything worse.

Mokuba buried his face in Kaiba's jacket. Seto carefully manoeuvred the two of them so that he was between Mokuba and Marik.

Ishizu watched in silence with the same stare as always. Then she shut her eyes, accepting the world's doom.

The camera crew looked around, confused, and the announcer cut to an advert break.

Dinosaur Ryuzaki and Insector Haga looked at each other as the ads began, as if the other would know what the heck had just happened.

Esper Roba wasn't a telepath, truth be told, but did have some psychic senses, and he heeded their warning to _get as far away from that blimp as possible_.

Sugoroku Mutou watched. Then he remembered his theories. Then he panicked, for the fate of his grandson and the fate of the world.

Kajiki Ryouta packed up his fishing kit and brought out the boat. The fish seemed to be heading offshore. That was fine. He'd follow them.

Rebecca Hopkins saw the fire and heard the laugh. Logic dictated that she should run, hide, or both. She ran to the Kame Game Shop.

Pegasus Crawford watched on his hospital bedside TV. After a few moments, he nodded and flipped the channel.

_Alright, alright, Shadi, don't panic, don't panic. He might have the Rod and Puzzle, all right. But he might not have the others. _

_Tauk? _

_Ishizu gave that to the Puzzle-bearer. _

_Ring?_

He remembered the glint of gold under Marik's cloak.

_Don't panic yet, don't panic yet, he might not have the Eye, who had the Eye last? _

_The Ring Spirit._

_All right, Shadi, you can panic now._

Mai Kujaku still couldn't remember the people on the beach. She wasn't sure she hadn't known them before. She wasn't even sure about her name. There were two things she was sure about though.

Her tormentor. He – it? – would be back.

And that somewhere outside her prison, something had gone horribly wrong.

Deep in the Shadow Realm, Yami Bakura and Malik began yet another heated argument about exactly whose fault it was that Marik now had five out of seven Items.

Ryou Bakura watched through a tiny silver window as the flames died away and Marik took his prize from Yugi's body. He knew he should care, but he just felt detached.

And Marik laughed, and laughed, and laughed.

-0-0-0-

_It's a nightmare_, Anzu thought. _Just a nightmare._ She tried pinching herself. Anything rather than admit that Marik really was bringing the Puzzle down on Yugi, to stab him to death with the Item that had claimed him. Marik lifted the bloodstained Puzzle over his head, and gave one final laugh-

Before the boom mic came crashing down in his ribs.

Marik fell, and the Puzzle rolled away. The wind crashed him down onto the platform in front of the shocked soundman. Everyone stared at him. He stared at the boom mic, as if not believing what he had just done.

Marik twitched, and the soundman brought the boom mic down again.

For a second more, there was silence. Noone was ever quite sure who took advantage of the lull and shouted above the wind at the top of their voice:

"EVERYONE OFF THIS BLIMP!"

The call spurred everyone into action. Mokuba grabbed a mic and sent out a warning message all over the blimp. Honda and Ryuji handed out parachutes. Shizuka and Ishizu ran below decks to gather up more. Kaiba barked orders at everyone who came up. The soundman stood like a guard over Marik and Yugi.

Anzu and Jounouchi looked at each other. Then he pushed her onto the platform. She helped him up. Then the two crept to Yugi's prone body.

Marik had stabbed him in the side, and blood had already started flowing. Anzu ripped off her windbreaker and carefully wrapped it around him. Not that it would do much good, but it was better than nothing. Meanwhile, Jounouchi tapped her on the shoulder.

"Anzu?"

She was trying to tie a half-remembered knot from a first aid course, and so didn't react for a second. "Mmm?"

"What're we gonna do with the Puzzle?"

That made her stop. They couldn't leave it here, for Marik to use, of course. After a moment's thought, she decided.

"Break it."

"Whah?"

"Marik can't use it that way. And… Yugi…" She gulped. "Won't be needing it anymore."

Jounouchi nodded solemnly, and threw the Puzzle onto the deck. It landed near Honda, who was tying on his parachute. Anzu leapt down, and Jounouchi followed her, taking Yugi with him.

"We can't just leave him for Marik to savage!" Anzu nodded, and helped him lower Yugi down. When he saw what was going on, Ryuji came over to help.

That done, Jounouchi started pulling at the Puzzle. He pulled and grasped and twisted, but it was no use. Finally he sighed and handed it to Ryuji with a, "You try."

Ryuji tried. Anzu tried. It was only when Honda came over that the Puzzle split into its component pieces. Odd, that.

"Ishizu is going to try to figure out how to get Mai and Rishid off, but we think we've sent everyone up here." Shizuka chatted as she came upstairs, attaching her own parachute. When she saw what they were doing, she stopped before running over to the group.

Mokuba was watching the various people hurl themselves off the blimp. Seto, Marik, Ishizu and Yugi's friends were the only people left on the blimp. What were they doing, anyway? He trotted down the emergency steps and raced over to the group.

The Puzzle had clattered onto the deck, and the group gathered the pieces into the centre. As Anzu and Jounouchi attached their parachutes, Ryuji, Honda, Shizuka and Mokuba debated what to do with them.

"Throw them over the rails," suggested Ryuji, but the proposal was instantly rejected by everyone else.

"The Puzzle's what brought us together!" shouted Honda. "We can't just leave it!"

They seemed to be on the verge of a fight when Mokuba shouted, "WAIT!" Then, more quietly, "I have an idea."

"We each take a piece, all right? And then we throw the rest off the blimp." There was a pause, then everyone nodded.

As Yugi's oldest friend, Anzu was first to try. She chose the piece which had held the rope.

Jounouchi went next. He tapped a few pieces before taking one of the corner pieces.

Honda took an insignificant edge piece. "It just feels right," he told the others.

Mokuba bit his lip, before taking two corner pieces. "For Seto," he said quickly, as they glared at him.

Shizuka moved her hand over the pieces, before diving for the last of the corners. She picked it up, and examined it.

Finally, Ryuji picked up the largest side piece, before moving to shove the pieces over the edge of the blimp. Anzu flung her hand out in front of him. "Huh?"

Anzu grabbed the piece with the Wadjet Eye and tucked it into one of Yugi's pockets. Then the six of them, together, slid the Puzzle pieces over the side of the blimp. One slid along the side. Jounouchi made to grab it, but Kaiba picked it up.

Seto looked at the golden gleam, before hurling it over the side. Shizuka breathed a sigh of relief.

And then the soundman screamed.

Marik stood up on the platform in all his bloody terror, flinging the soundman's corpse over the rails. Then he turned to face them, and licked the blood off the knife in the Rod.

That act brought the watchers out of their horrified trance. Seto hurled Mokuba off the blimp before jumping off himself. Jounouchi grabbed Shizuka and pulled her through an emergency gap in the rails. Ryuji and Honda fought to get out before Anzu kicked them through. Anzu herself dragged Yugi – no need to be careful now – through to the gap, before pushing him into the air. She watched him fall down into the sea, and her heart gave a pang. She was only distracted sufficiently when she heard Marik's boots hit the deck, and she ran into the sky.

As the air rocketed past her face, she scrabbled for the parachute's pull. Finally, she grabbed it, and slowed down enough to see that she was probably going to land in Domino, what with the wind and all.

Anzu tried to turn her head to see the blimp, and caught a glimpse of a spray of glass and a figure in white falling. _So Ishizu's safe._

She looked down at the city. _But what about the world?_

-End Chapter-

So, chapter over. If I have anything OOC/canon contradicting/laws of physics breaking/just plain bad/formatted horribly, feel free to point it out.

Reviews are welcomed. Constructive crit is appreciated. Flames are not. Don't do them.

Bye!


	2. 1: The Storm Begins

Thank you to everyone who viewed this. Now will someone please review? There were at least sixty of ya. SIXTY. Could just one of you review? Pleease? I really want to know what I'm doing right/wrong here. But thanks to the two people who faved and story alerted me! Love ya! Anyway, enjoy!

The Enemy Has The Move

Chapter One: The Storm Begins

"Come out! We have you surrounded! Mr Ishtar, you are under arrest for attempted murder! If you do not come out within the next twenty seconds, we shall-"

"Relax, officers. I'm coming out." The blimp's door unfolded with a hydraulic hiss, and landed with a soft thump on the ground of Domino City's largest – and only – blimp dock. Every one of the policemen had been summoned there four minutes previously, when the blimp's autopilot had asked for permission to land there. As one, they raised truncheons and prop guns.

Marik came walking down the steps, scanning the men for their leader. Ah, there she was. She held a pistol, and felt like she duelled in her spare time. Interesting. He reached her, and she began to reel off his arrest warrant. About three sentences in, he got bored, whipped out the Rod, flicked open the knife and stabbed her in the throat.

There was a shocked silence.

Then someone charged him, and Marik killed him with a flick of the Rod along his spinal cord. Knowing that he must have looked like something from hell, Marik lifted the Rod to his face, let out his tongue and gave them his best psychotic grin.

They scattered.

Marik waited a second before his face relaxed and he stowed away the Rod again. They'd be back soon, with more serious weapons. He took his deck out of its holder, wiped the blood onto his cloak – had to keep cards clean, after all – and reached for the Heart of the Cards.

A moment later, he snatched the first card off the top of the deck. It was the Sun Dragon. Marik gave a real smile, which somehow managed to be scarier than his fake one, and began the summoning chant.

Then cold gold wings exploded in the black night, followed by bloody red. The two Dragons began to beat their wings, moving the clouds above.

A black cloud barrier moved across the city, marking out the entire city. Marik clicked his fingers, the beating stopped, and the energy rushed in.

The power from the storm gathered itself into a bright orange ball around the size of a laptop. Marik raised one hand and the ball rose up, turning black, every so often flashing streaks of gold and – silver? Worry about that later. He clenched his hand into a fist, and the ball contracted. He checked that he was under the Sky Dragon's leg, and opened his hand.

The ball exploded outward at the speed of light, rippling all over Domino, a wave of destruction razing the city to the ground. Everyone within half a kilometre was killed instantly. The rest were not so lucky. Fire spread throughout the city, and what sounded like an earthquake started up.

All of eighteen seconds later, Marik peeked out from behind the leg of the Dragon. While brushing some slivers of glass off his arm, he leapt atop the head of the Sun Dragon, and scanned the cityscape.

Half an hour ago, Domino City had been a gleaming metropolis, the gaming centre of the world, possibly the most futuristic city ever built.

Now it was a scene from a disaster movie. Skyscrapers had toppled, buildings had crumbled, the river had dried up, the land had split and most of the eastern district was on fire. Everyone who hadn't died was screaming, from agony, hopelessness, or the sheer absurdity of it all.

Marik licked his lips. Soon all the cities of the world would burn, yes, and then the fire would spread and spread until the entire planet was consumed. But that was all in the grand scheme. Now for a little fun…

He jumped off the Sun Dragon's head, and sped off into the night.

-0-0-0-

Anzu had almost landed when the storm struck.

One moment she was trying to get down onto the slowly approaching helipad, and the next a wave of energy snapped her up and carried her off. It was like being inside a tornado. She span like a top, and all she could think of was the roaring in her ears and the fact that she was going to die and there was the sea and she was going to drown and…

And the wave tore off her parachute and she crashed into the sea.

Water. Water all around her, clasping at her mouth, she couldn't breathe, she was still going forward and she couldn't breathe, there was a hand and she couldn't breathe, there was a hand grabbing her and she was going to drown and she was going up but she couldn't breathe…

She breached the surface, and there was air, glorious, pure, clean air. She tried to take a deep breath, coughed out some water and tried again. She was only dimly aware of being dragged through a restless sea and up, up onto a boat, where she coughed up more water. Only then did Anzu turn to look at her rescuer.

She blinked in surprise.

"Kajiki?"

-0-0-0-

"Shizuka!"

The voice broke through Kawai Shizuka's thoughts. She had been watching the city after her parachute had landed some distance outside. She was perched on a small outcrop of rock, trying to plan out what to do next. The obvious answer had been to look for Katsuya, but she couldn't do that by walking around aimlessly. But, it seemed, she didn't need to. Katsuya had found her.

Her brother looked a little rumpled but generally none the worse for wear. He gave her a cocky wink. She ran to him and hugged him. The two just stood there for a moment, safe in each other's arms. Finally, they pulled apart, and he slapped her on the back.

"All right, sis?"

"Fine, thanks, bro."

The stars smiled at them kindly from the deep blue sky. Twinkle, twinkle.

And then Domino City exploded.

A great black wave of energy swooped over the landscape towards them. Katsuya had the presence of mind to drag the pair under a rock behind a bush before it struck.

The bush's branches were stripped clean as the edge of the wave hit them. For ten seconds that seemed to last forever, Shizuka held on tight to her brother, as a great roaring filled her ears and debris battered at her body.

Then all of a sudden, it stopped.

Shizuka took a moment to breathe, before poking her head up and looking to where the wave had been going. It seemed to have dissipated. She almost sighed with relief. Then she noticed that every plant in the vicinity had been stripped of its leaves, all the grass had turned brown and a nearby pool had dried up. She gulped instead.

Katsuya tapped her shoulder, and she turned around to look at him. When she saw what he saw, she gave a cry of horror.

Domino City had been completely annihilated. Every tall building in the city had collapsed. Huge portions of the city were burning. Ash was everywhere, rising up in a great cloud. There seemed to be a split in the land.

"Oh no," whispered Shizuka. "Oh please no." It was so horrible, yet they were unable to tear their eyes away.

The world felt cold, then. All her friends from then and now – probably dead. Anzu, Honda, Ryuji… Even Kaiba and his sweet little brother. All gone. And she still had a life in Tokyo. She couldn't even imagine what Katsuya was feeling.

The stars leered down at them coldly from the dark, dark sky.

Twinkle, twinkle.

-0-0-0-

_Ugh. How late did I stay up last night?_

Kaiba Seto tried to remember. All that came was planning a tournament. Battle City, that was it. He'd decided to use the Duel Disk system.

And there it was, strapped to his arm. Odd, that. Where exactly was he? For the first time since coming to, he properly looked at his surroundings.

He seemed to be propped up in a small room made of rock. Which meant he wasn't in the KaibaCorp tower. That was made of metal. There was a gap in the far wall. It led out onto a cloudy night.

The sight of the collapsed tower brought memories rushing back, of Ishizu, of the tournament, of the finals, of Marik, of parachutes and falling and landing and running to the KaibaCorp tower to meet up with Mokuba and plan a way out, of the explosion, of the earthquake and desperately trying to hide and…

Mokuba.

"MOKUBA!" Seto shouted, as he ran out of the ruin and into the street. Panic blinded him, and he tripped over a protruding piece of road. He flailed out with his hands, and came to a stop with his arm out. The deck holder in the Duel Disk snapped, and cards flew everywhere.

It took a moment for Seto's world to stop whirling and he fully realised what had just happened.

After he picked himself up and checked for injuries, he almost ran off. There were few things in Seto's life more important than the Blue Eyes, and Mokuba was one of them. But just as he hit the end of the street, it hit him that he'd probably never see them again. And he didn't know that Mokuba was in trouble. He could be okay… It was about then that he realised the dragons were screwing with his mind.

"Alright, fine," he muttered, walking back to the scattered cards. He gathered three facedowns, reached for the Heart of the Cards and flipped his Blue Eyes into his backup deck. After a moment's thought, he did the same for the Tormentor.

Then he ran down the street in the direction of the business district and the KaibaCorp tower for the third time, but more carefully.

At some point he thought to his dragons that if Mokuba was in any danger thanks to the delay he was going to rip them to pieces.

-0-0-0-

Kaiba Mokuba's heart was beating so quickly he felt sure that the creature in the street could hear it.

He had been walking along the ruined road, alternately thanking whoever up there that had helped him survive the wave and quake and calling for Seto. He had been trying to make his way to the KaibaCorp tower, to meet up with Seto and find out what to do.

Then what he had started mentally calling his Psycho Senses had flared, and he had ducked into the nearest building to hide from the rapidly approaching Marik.

Now he crouched under an empty window, holding his breath. Perhaps it was from overexposure to magic, but he could feel where Marik was at the back of his mind. Not that he actually made that observation until later. At that point, his thoughts were mainly concerned with making sure he stayed hidden and the fact that Marik was getting closer and he wasn't hidden enough and Marik had sensed him and Marik was on the other side of the window frame and _oh god he was going to die_-

There came a scream from the next street over, and Marik raced off at the prospect of the kind of victim who would scream.

It took about a second for this to sink in. Then Mokuba jumped over the window ledge and ran in the opposite direction to Marik.

He ran through the ruined streets, jumping over rubble and wreckage. It took a while before he realised he was following a specific route. When he did, he sped along even faster, before he finally arrived at the Kame Game Shop.

It seemed oddly unharmed by the blast. Yami had probably put up a ward or seven. Out of pure habit, he tapped the door. What was he expecting, for Grandpa to come out and answer it?

Someone did answer it. But it wasn't Grandpa.

"Just who the hell are you, and what are you doing here?" said the blonde who had answered the door.

"I could ask you the same question." Mokuba was trying his best to look as threatening as it is possible to be when you've just parachuted away from a blimp and survived an explosion that could roughly be considered a nuclear bomb. Needless to say, this wasn't very.

The girl rolled her eyes. "Why are you here?"

"To see Mutou Sugoroku. I'm a friend of his grandson."

"I've met his friends, and you weren't among them."

"I'm more of a distant friend."

"Suure."

Mokuba later reflected that it was the way she said it – rolling it out on her tongue - that made him snap.

"AND HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU MET THEM THEN? ONCE? I HAVEN'T SEEN YOU WITH THEM AT ALL, AND I'VE BEEN TO THIS SHOP TEN TIMES THIS PAST WEEK!"

"Well I-"

"DO YOU EVEN DUEL? OF COURSE NOT! EVERY ONE OF YUGI'S FRIENDS DUELS AND YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN KNOW THAT!"

"Hey! I'm-"

"ALL YOU CARE ABOUT IS PROBABLY MAKEUP AND DOLLS AND OTHER GIRLY THINGS! YOU PROBABLY DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT A GAME IS FOR IF IT ISN'T PINK!"

At that point he ran out of breath, and the girl took the opportunity to shout, "I'M THE AMERICAN NATIONAL JUNIOR DUELING CHAMPION, AND MY GRANDPA KNOWS YUGI'S!"

Mokuba looked at her properly for the first time. "Yeah, I've heard of you. Hopkins Rebecca, right?"

"Yep." She studied him. "You were at Battle City, yes?"

Mokuba nodded. "Kaiba Mokuba." He bowed.

"You're the commissioner?"

"No, that's my big brother. I presume you competed?"

"Yeah." She chuckled. "Got knocked out pretty early on, though. Took on an easy that wasn't so easy." She paused. "I guess that's how you know Yugi and company. The whole eternal-rival thing."

"A lot of that's just on for the papers. They actually get along pretty well." Mokuba thought this over for a moment. "Well, as well as my big brother gets along with anyone. Now him and _Jounouchi_…"

The hostile atmosphere was all but gone, and Mokuba felt that it was safe to ask. "So, where's Grandpa?"

Hopkins bit her lip. "He, uh..."

"What?" Mokuba felt his anger rise again.

"W-when the wave struck, he ran outside. I think he was trying to see what was happening. Anyway, the wave hit, and he was outside whatever kept this place safe and he was really old and…" She gulped. "Kaiba, he's dead."

-0-0-0-

Anzu watched Kajiki bustle about the boat out of the corner of her eye. Mostly, though, she just looked at the wreck of Domino as the sun rose over it. What had happened? She just hoped that everyone else was out. Though her parents were probably…

_Don't think about that._ "So, Kajiki?" She rustled her tinfoil sheet to get his attention.

"Mmm?" She didn't know how he'd got a piece of rope in his mouth, and she didn't want to either.

"Where're we going? I mean, we can't go back to Domino."

"Mmrm."

"Huh?"

He spat out the rope. "Sorry. We're going to Kobe."

"Oh. Kay. Any particular reason?"

"I live there and have a few boats there. We could go off to China and…"

"Waitwaitwait. _China?_ I've got friends in Domino! I've got to stay in Japan and look for them! I can't just uproot!"

"Well, you're going to have to. Whoever or whatever hit Domino is going to hit again, and with any luck their next hit will be in Japan. Don't be in Japan, stay away from the wave."

"But I have to look for my friends!"

Kajiki thought. "How about this. I'll take you to Kobe, you can call your friends and stuff. I'll leave when I can get a permit, but you can come too if you want. Also, you can crash at my place. Deal?"

Anzu nodded. "Deal. But no funky stuff."

Kajiki grinned. "'Course not."

-0-0-0-

Katsuya screeched in frustration.

"What the hell are we going to do now?"

He'd been stuck on this track for the past few hours. Domino was a no-go. But they couldn't stay here either. Shizuka had mainly focused on scanning the land before the city to see if anyone had made it out. So far she'd had no luck.

Wait, there was someone.

The person was running up towards them, away from the city.

Katsuya pounded up to meet them, asking them if they had seen Honda or Anzu or Grandpa or Ryuji or Mokuba or Kaiba or Ishizu…

But the person ran past them, into the woods. By the woods was a road.

A plan began to form in Shizuka's mind.

Katsuya started to rant again, about how much fate hated them, and look, there was another orange light, maybe the plains were on fire now? Great. Just great.

But it wasn't a fire.

It was the sun, creeping up into the sky.

It lit up the burned and battered landscape, and Shizuka followed its rays until she saw the road that led to Kobe.

The plan in her mind came to full fruition.

"Big brother?"

"Huh?"

"How do you feel about hitchhiking?"

-0-0-0-

Seto was hot, bruised, and had tripped over his trenchcoat about eighty times. Needless to say, he wasn't in the best of moods when he finally stumbled his way to the business district.

When he hit the first pile of rubble that was too large to scale, he groaned and turned to look for a side street. Except there weren't any.

With increasing horror he realised that the business district had been close enough to the wave's epicentre and full enough of tall buildings to be completely annihilated.

_All right_, he thought, after he had rationalised his worries away with the fact that he had seen Mokuba land on the other side of the city and wouldn't have had time to get here. _What now?_

He was still pondering this question ten minutes later as he ambled down the street. He had to find Mokuba, of course, but the rational part of his brain was screaming that wandering around the city was probably just going to be counterproductive. And the part of his brain that had been watching Mokuba since his parents had died was saying that if he left Mokuba would probably get kidnapped again.

Seto blamed the mutt, Ishtar Malik's split personality, Ishtar Ishizu, lack of sleep and the dragons.

It was about then that his deck poked him in the chest.

"Well, do you have any ideas?" In the back of his mind, he observed that he must be really losing it to be shouting at inanimate objects.

He waited for a second before continuing to search for Mokuba.

Suddenly the hair on the nape of his neck went up and he felt the same feeling of slowly approaching doom as he had on the blimp.

_It's probably nothing_, he told himself. Except it wasn't, because a few moments later he heard a very familiar laugh.

Then he was scrambling away from the business district, away through the side streets and down to the docks.

It was there he found the motorcycle.

It seemed that its owner had parked it before the blast had hit. The keys weren't in it. Seto checked under a nearby box. There they were. It even had a half-tank of fuel.

_Get the bike_, said the part of him that had good ideas. _Get to KaibaCorp in Kobe. Get a Mokuba rescue party. You're rich. Noone will ask questions._

All that remained was to find out what nasty trick Murphy's Law had put up. The bike probably didn't work or something.

It did.

But it was only as he wheeled it out of the docks that he realised just how hard it was going to be to get a wheeled vehicle out of the ruins.

-0-0-0-

They held Grandpa's funeral at dawn.

Mokuba wasn't entirely sure what to do. What did you do with a body? How did you dig a grave? They dragged him up a hill, and buried him with gardening tools under a dead tree. Hopkins lit a candle just as the sun came out.

The two sat in silence, for a moment.

Then Hopkins said, "We can't stay here."

Mokuba was thinking that it should have been Yugi and Hopkins' grandfather who should have buried him, and not two people who knew them.

"If we stay here we'll run out of food. Not to mention the fact that it's unsanitary and there'll probably be rats and with all the dead bodies disease will spread like wildfire."

Mokuba wondered where Seto was. He wondered if his big brother was looking for him.

"Kaiba, you can probably get us access to food and a roof and some state-of-the-art equipment so that we can find Yugi and his friends and find out what happened. Will you?"

Mokuba continued thinking. He was only interrupted when Hopkins poked him.

"What was that for?"

"Kaiba. We need to leave. Do you have anywhere to go?"

"Well, there's the KaibaCorp base in Kobe…"

"Perfect. We'll go there then." She turned and marched down the hill.

"Hey! Wait! I never said I'd go with you! I…" Mokuba chased her down the hill.

"We'll get food and other stuff at the Kame, and then we'll walk. It's only about four days."

"Four days? But I have to look for my brother!"

"Look, if your brother's as smart as I think he is he'll head to Kobe and get a big search party. There we can catch him."

"But…"

"And I'm coming with you, whether you like it or not."

Lost for words, Mokuba followed Hopkins down to the Kame, wondering just how she had hijacked his life.

-0-0-0-

Marik was soaring in the sky on top of the Sun Dragon, watching.

He watched as the fires in the city died down. He tried to clean some of the blood off the Rod, but he was unsuccessful.

Then, he felt the Ring twitch, and he placed it on the palm of his hand. He felt the tiny fires of a thousand souls, all together, all leaving the city in a mass exodus.

He threw down the Ring. This was going to be fun.

He tucked himself between the wings of the Sun Dragon and let his soul flow into it. Then he dived, dived, and dived again, spewing fireballs as he did so. And when there were only thirty left, he flowed his soul back into his body, leapt from the Sun Dragon's back and danced his dance of blood and death.

Finally, he slid his knife out of a woman's body, licked the blood off his lips and began to plan. Domino would be almost empty now. Maybe he should go somewhere else. Like Kyoto. A city that big would keep his bloodlust fed for weeks.

And then, who knew? Maybe that big city he'd seen to the north. What was it called? He perused Malik's memories.

Oh, that was it. Kobe.

-End Chapter-

Well, that just about wraps up this bit! Once again, review, criticise, and don't flame.

See ya!


	3. 2: Kobe

I'm back, and I bring a new chapter with me.

Disclaimer: YGO still isn't mine.

The Enemy Has The Move

Chapter Two: Kobe

Kaiba Seto sped into Kobe around noon.

He'd been charging through the very edges of the conurbation for half an hour, but it was only now that he saw the change in architecture that marked the beginning of Kobe proper. Soon enough he saw the KaibaCorp tower on the horizon, and he set out on the maze of backstreets that would lead him there.

One overly complicated ride later, he stood outside the tower, ready to buzz in. But before he did so, he flipped out his mobile phone, and dialled the first number on speed dial.

_Come on. Pick up. Please._

"The person you are calling is not available at the moment. Please leave a message after the beep."

Beeeep…

"Hello, Mokuba, it's Seto. I'm outside the KaibaCorp tower in Kobe right now, so when you pick this up, get there as soon as possible, you hear me?" He hit 'end call' and stowed the phone away before hitting the buzzer.

"Who's that?" The voice that came through the buzzer sounded pompous and arrogant. Seto grinned, and made sure that his voice dripped with ice when he replied.

"Kaiba Seto."

"Mr Kaiba!" There came a sound like pens clattering all over a desk, and it took whoever was on the other end of the line a moment to get back together. "I… Uh… That is… We thought…"

"That I was dead? Well, I'm obviously not. Now, buzz me in."

The door opened, and Seto marched into the Kobe branch of KaibaCorp.

-0-0-0-

"Thanks for the ride!"

"No problem." The person driving the car bowed, and Shizuka and Katsuya did likewise.

It was half past one in the afternoon. The two had had to wait until after ten before they'd seen a car that would pick them up. Now they were here in Osaka, and things could only get better.

Katsuya whipped out his phone, and began to hit numbers on the speed dial. None of them connected. Shizuka did likewise, but her first call did.

"Mum?"

A crackle of static came down the lines. "Shi-Shizuka?"

"Yep."

"Shizuka! Are you all right? Are you hurt? Where are you? Are you with anyone?" Her mother's questions rolled down the phone line in a joyful rush.

"I'm fine; I'm with Katsuya in Kobe."

"Good. Get yourself to Myoudani station. I'll come and pick you up, okay?"

"Yes, Mum. Love you."

"Love you too. I'll see you soon." It took a few moments for her mother to click off.

Shizuka flicked her phone shut, and placed it back in her pocket. Katsuya was still leaving messages for his friends, so Shizuka took the time to look at Kobe's skyline.

Kobe was larger than Domino, but it didn't seem as high. She knew that those skyscrapers were quite tall, but Domino's had felt taller, even if they actually weren't. Far off, she saw a large KC sign. _I wonder where Mokuba and Kaiba are now…_

Katsuya coughed, and she turned to look at him. She would have asked him if anyone had answered, but the look on his face answered her question.

Instead she said, 'Mum's picking us up at Myoudani."

"Really?" Katsuya's face flickered between relief and disappointment, before settling on the former. "Are we going to yours after that?"

"I guess so."

Katsuya almost grinned. It was the first time her brother had done anything near smile since the destruction of Domino, and it lightened Shizuka's heart. "Let's go to the station, then," he said.

He turned and led her into the city.

After a while, he stopped in the middle of a street, earning curious looks from passers-by. "Shizuka?"

"Yeah?"

"Where's Myoudani station?"

Shizuka rolled her eyes and dragged him off to a nearby tourist information centre.

-0-0-0-

A rooftop in Kyoto.

A flash of black-gold light. A thud. A creature that looked like a man standing and looking.

A grin, revealing a sharp fang.

Twin streaks of red and gold swooping into view. Twin beats of giant wings on rooftops nearby.

A hand, pointing to the sky, stretching and straining until the power grew too great. A sudden hand clasping. An orange ball of energy. An arm, reaching as high as it could go.

An open fist.

A breaking storm.

-0-0-0-

It was during their first day at sea that Anzu spotted Kobe.

The city was gleaming in the afternoon sun, and shone with white light. It was a reminder of all she had lost.

Kajiki bustled about the boat, doing whatever needed to happen to boats to make them work. Anzu was sitting near the prow, wearing a tinfoil sheet and some of Kajiki's spare clothes. Her deck was soaked beyond repair, but they were just cards. She'd never quite understood the Heart of the Cards. It was a pity about her mobile though. It had been completely soaked.

Speaking of mobiles… "Kajiki?"

"Yeah?"

"Can I borrow your mobile?" They probably weren't close enough to land to get a signal, but it was worth a try.

"Here." He tossed her a mobile. She caught it just before it flew overboard, and held down the on button. _Come on_, she thought to it as it started up. _Signal, signal, signal, signal…_

_Yes!_

A faint bar of connection was in the top right corner of the menu screen. Anzu punched in Jounouchi's number before the thin thread of connection could disappear.

The phone rang, and after the second call, Jounouchi's voice, loud and angry, spat down the phone, "Who the hell is this?"

"It's me, Anzu."

"A-Anzu?" Jounouchi sounded shocked. "Why aren't you calling from your phone?"

"Long story short, I fell in the sea and was rescued by Kajiki Ryouta, whose phone I am now using." She paused. "Have Honda or anyone…"

"Nope. But I'm with Shizuka. We're in Kobe, walking to Osaka. Where are you?"

"On Kajiki's boat. We're heading to Kobe. Why are you walking to Osaka?"

"You don't know? Whatever happened to Domino just happened to Kyoto, and they've cancelled all the trains going into the area. Mum was gonna meet up with us, but she was on the train."

"So you're going to see if she passed through Kyoto on her way to see you?"

"Y-yeah. At the moment, we're wandering in the general direction of Osaka, trying to find someone who both knows and is willing to tell."

"Anything on the news?"

"Just the usual natural disaster stuff. 'Thousands dead, millions homeless', ya know?" A rush of static. "I can't believe I just said that. I never thought it would actually apply…"

"To us. Here. Japan." She bit her lip. "You want to meet up at the docks? I… I just want to know that this conversation was real."

"Me too. Where are you docking?"

Anzu relayed the question to Kajiki, who replied. "Wharf 758," she told Jounouchi.

"Uh-huh. When do you think you'll get in?"

The message was put through Kajiki. "Tomorrow morning."

"Good. We'll meet ya." Jounouchi clicked off. Spirits heightened by that encounter, Anzu tried everyone else. Noone picked up, though.

With a disappointed sigh, she turned to Kajiki and began to explain her conversation.

-0-0-0-

Mokuba had blisters all over his feet.

He'd been walking flat out for what felt like days but was probably just a few hours, and he was sweating and exhausted.

_Come on, Mokuba_, he silently urged himself. _You escaped from Pegasus' castle and the Ghouls. Why is a country hike taking you this much effort?_

Hopkins was a fair bit ahead of him, backpack on her back, moving at an even pace. _How does she go so fast for this long with that weight?_

Hopkins, for her part, had stopped at the top of a hill, and Mokuba lowered himself next to her, panting.

"We'll stop here for the night," she announced, and Mokuba nodded wearily. The sun was setting, and he really didn't feel like walking in the dark.

She must have heard him pant, for she said pointedly, "Not used to walking, Kaiba? You'd better get used to it."

Mokuba was too exhausted to reply to the jibe. Instead he lay where he was for a while, before heaving off the backpack and opening it to reveal a very bruised but still edible-looking banana. He ate it with relish.

Hopkins ate a banana too, finally polishing off all the fresh fruit they had brought. Now they were onto snacks and their ilk.

They didn't have a fire. The Mutous hadn't had a lighter, and they sure as heck weren't going to do it the old-fashioned way. Instead, Mokuba zipped open his backpack and brought out what he assumed was Yugi's sleeping bag. He turned to look at Hopkins. She hadn't got hers out.

He stared at Hopkins, confused. She said, in a prissy voice, "Someone has to watch. What if another wave comes in the night? I'll get you up at eleven, and then you can watch."

Mokuba nodded dumbly, before settling down and dropping off.

It seemed only a few seconds before Hopkins shook him.

"Kaiba. You can go on watch now."

"Uhn." He sat himself on a rock. After a moment, he turned to Hopkins.

"Please, call me Mokuba."

"Why?"

"Kaiba's my big brother. To pretty much everyone, I'm Mokuba."

She thought for a moment. "All right, Mokuba. If you say so."

-0-0-0-

The skyline of Kobe was nothing compared to either that of Domino or that of Naruki, Shizuka mused.

Domino was just majestic. Its skyline from the blimp, as the sun had set, had seemed to be all the promises of tomorrow. A similar thing could have been said of the people on the blimp.

_Ryuji, Honda, Anzu, Mokuba, Kaiba, Ishizu. Where are you all now?_

Naruki, on the other hand, was homely and warm. She knew the names of all the towers she could see from the windows of her room. She could point out the towers where her friends lived.

_Miki, Sakura, Kaname. I wonder what you're doing._ The group of three who had taken her under her wing had gone on vacation to Europe. Shizuka had been invited too, but she had had to have the eye operation. And whether she liked it or not, she simply hadn't had enough credit for a transcontinental call.

_Mum._

They'd heard nothing from her since the wave had hit Kyoto. Katsuya had been running around, trying to find out if her train had been in Kyoto when the wave had hit. Her mobile had been off.

She really, really missed Naruki.

"Shower's occupied. Why didn't I listen to you?"

She turned and grinned as Katsuya walked through the door to the little motel room. With very little money, the most they had been able to afford was a tiny room in a grotty motel without any attached facilities. Shizuka had showered as soon as she had got in, when it was unoccupied. Katsuya had chosen to wait until morning.

"It's been thirty-one hours," she said suddenly.

"Huhn?"

"Thirty-one hours since Domino blew up."

"It is? It feels like thirty-one thousand years." Katsuya stretched. Then he blinked. "Get your jacket on."

"Why?"

"We're going to meet Anzu, remember?" He gave her a cheeky grin.

"Oh," she said, pulling on her jacket from where it hung on the door. "So we are."

-0-0-0-

"Hey there, Kajiki!"

"How's it going?"

"Who's the chick?"

"C'mon, baby! Dump Jikky and come with us!"

Comments like these, as well as wolf whistles, surrounded Anzu as Kajiki helped her climb off the boat and onto Wharf 758. She studiously ignored them.

Instead she started scanning the crowds for Jounouchi and Shizuka. Kajiki went off to greet his friends.

It was after about an hour that a blonde boy and a red haired girl waved to her, before pushing through the crowds to greet her.

"Jounouchi!" She hugged him. "Shizuka!" She hugged her too. "It's great to see you."

"Tell me about it." Jounouchi looked about the boat. "Where's Kajiki?"

"Somewhere off thataway." Anzu shrugged. "How've you guys been?"

"As well as can be, considering."

Shizuka coughed. "Guys…"

The two turned to face her. "Check the TV screens." She pointed to a screen on the side of a building.

The first thing that Anzu saw on the screen was a scrolling 'UN RELIEF FORCES REACH DOMINO CITY'.

The second thing she saw was a rescue crew pulling a man out of a collapsed building.

The third thing she saw was the newsreader, working as normal. Anzu laughed. She didn't know why.

She couldn't hear the newsreader from this distance, but she could read the scrolling titles.

'FIFTY PEOPLE CONFIRMED DEAD SO FAR, SEVEN FOUND ALIVE, FOUR INJURED. HELICOPTERS DONATED BY KAIBACORP."

"Under condition that they are returned once Mokuba is safe and sound, I bet," Jounouchi whispered to her. Anzu murmured agreement.

Lists of the dead scrolled up the other side of the screen. Maki Shoko, Imori Hajime, Otogi – her heart jumped into her throat – Takuoh… The list continued on, but no one she knew was on it.

"Hey there!"

Anzu jumped before she realised it was Kajiki. Turning around, she growled at him.

Kajiki held up his hands, and chuckled defensively. "Hello, Anzu, and Jounouchi, and…" He peered at Shizuka. "I don't think we've met."

"I'm Kawai Shizuka. Jounouchi's sister."

"Nice to meet you." He turned to Jounouchi. "You want to come back to mine?"

"Why are you asking us?"

"I don't get much company. Besides, I have an internet connection. You can check on your friends."

After a quick group conference, the three turned to Kajiki and said, "All right."

And thus Anzu led the other two of Yugi's friends behind Kajiki, as they ducked and wove through the seedy parts of the docks.

-0-0-0-

When Mokuba first saw the road he thought it was a hallucination, brought on by exhaustion.

But nevertheless, it was there. Otherwise Hopkins wouldn't be gaping at it either.

And if the road wasn't an illusion, the convoy of rescuers probably wasn't either.

Of course, Hopkins' expression could also be an illusion. But Mokuba was too tired to think that deeply.

He'd hardly slept at all the previous night, after his watch. There'd been stones where he'd put the bag, and nature had decided to make as much noise as possible. He'd had barely any breakfast, and had been walking for ages.

"Kai- Mokuba? Do you see it too?"

Her voice cut through his musings. He grunted a reply, before sitting on the edge of the road.

Hopkins muttered, "Wimp."

Mokuba would have snapped back at her, if he hadn't decided to take a much-needed rest.

He felt the convoy rumble by, and heard Hopkins shout. Vaguely, he felt himself be lifted up, before his random thoughts turned to dreams.

He slowly became aware of himself again, and realised that he was in a vehicle of some sort. For a moment, he wondered where he was. Then he heard Hopkins chatting with someone else in English, and remembered.

He lay on a bench in a rattling van. Hopkins was talking to a red haired man. Once he saw that Mokuba was conscious, he sat beside him. After Mokuba had cleared his head, the man spoke in Japanese.

"My name's Gallagher Darren. Your friend there says you like to be called by your first name. May I?"

Mokuba nodded. "Alright, Mokuba, your friend says that you are the brother of Kaiba Seto. Could I see some proof of that?"

_He must not watch Duel Monsters tournaments._ Mokuba flicked out his library card.

"This looks okay. Where is your brother now, do you think?"

"KaibaCorp in Kobe, hopefully."

"Very good." Gallagher smiled at him. "I'll get you some hot chocolate, and then…"

"Darren!"

A young man with brown hair rushed in from the driver's area. He was holding a small portable TV set. He shouted at Gallagher in English, before placing the TV on a bench. The four crowded around it.

"Not again," muttered Mokuba. "First Domino and now Osaka?"

"They got Kyoto too," whispered Hopkins.

-0-0-0-

In an overly red boardroom half an island away, several old men around a table watched the same broadcast on a plasma screen TV.

"This is the third attack!" said one of them. "This has happened three times too many to go unnoticed!"

There came various murmurs of agreement.

"So," said the person who sat at the head of table. "What should be done?"

"Send in the army!" shouted one of them.

"Get some people on who did this!" yelled another.

The man at the table's head wrote them down. "Anything else? No? Good."

Before he made the Japanese crisis government's orders public, he added a little note.

_Evacuate Kobe._

-End Chapter-

Aand that about wraps it up! It looked longer in Word.

I'd just like to thank my single (so far) reviewer. Follow her example, everyone else!

Bye!


	4. 3: Crossing Paths

Not dead! Not dead! Completely and utterly NOT DEAD!

I'm sorry for not updating this thing since March. DAMN YOU WRITER'S BLOCK!

If you like GX and 5Ds, I posted a oneshot about them.

And onto the fic!

The Enemy Has The Move

Chapter 3: Crossing Paths

"Attention, citizens of Kobe. This city is being evacuated. Please make your way to the docks, for ships that shall transport you to Shikoku. Proceed in an orderly manner. Attention, citizens of Kobe…"

The message was repeated on screens all around the city. Everyone saw it. It had hijacked the local broadcasting signal, and those who, for whatever reason, did not hear it, were soon told by their frightened neighbours.

Seto slammed his fists into his desk, before closing the programs on his laptop. If Mokuba was in Kobe, he'd be with the refugees. He turned on the intercom, and let the message speak for itself, before getting ready to search for his brother at the docks.

Shizuka climbed off the table in Kajiki's grotty flat, to the sound of the radio. _Must be a disaster movie._ She flipped the channel. In growing horror, she realised that it wasn't, and she yelled to the rest of the group.

Anzu rubbed sleep out of her eyes, and pushed herself out of the saggy couch. It took a moment for what Shizuka was shouting to register. Then she ran into the kitchen, where Shizuka was shuddering, Jounouchi was trying to comfort her, and Kajiki was swearing like he was competing for it.

Mokuba stared at the signal. Gallagher was translating rapidly for the other man. Hopkins sighed. "Call your brother," she advised. "He might know what to do."

A black-haired boy with earring dice watched the message. He swore, and turned to the door of the hotel room to pack his bag.

In the ruins of Domino City, a brown haired boy watched the second blast in less than a week. He turned to the buried bodies of his parents, before biting his lip, clutching a puzzle piece and grabbing his motorcycle helmet.

In a port city in the south, a woman in white heard the news. She nodded, and headed west.

-0-0-0-

_Beep. Beep._

Seto snapped open his phone. "What?"

A rush of breath down the line. Then…

"Seto?"

"Mokuba!" Seto stopped in his tracks. "Where are you?"

"In a van on the way into Kobe, with two rescue workers and the American Junior Champion. Where are you?"

"Outside KaibaCorp's Kobe branch, about to head to the docks. Meet me there, okay?"

He ended the call. Almost immediately, the phone rang again.

"What?" He growled his usual greeting down the line.

"Seto, it's Mokuba. Gallagher – that's one of the rescue workers - said that we won't be able to go that far into the city."

"Why?"

"Convenience, basically. They don't want to be caught in the inevitable traffic jam."

"Oh, really. Pass the phone over."

There came various crackles and fizzes. Finally, another voice spoke on the phone. "Mr Kaiba, is that you? I'm…"

"Why are you refusing to deliver my brother to me?"

The man stuttered. "Mr Kaiba, if we go into Kobe, we probably won't be able to make it…"

"If my brother is not at the front door within the hour, you will have a lot more to worry about than traffic jams. For example, having your credit card cancelled, getting a heavy income tax, gaining a criminal record…"

"All right. We'll deliver your brother." Seto shut the phone with a smirk.

-0-0-0-

It seemed like the entire city was trying to push its way through the streets.

Of course, mused Shizuka, it probably was.

They were four in a million, Kajiki pushing them through because he knew the way, Katsuya behind him semi-supporting his backpack, Shizuka behind him with her eyes shut against the various things that were flying around, Anzu last and squeezing her arm incredibly hard, as Shizuka squeezed back with equal force.

Noise and smells from the city bombarded them. People screamed, shouted, laughed and prophesised doom. Over it all were police announcements, barely audible but still there.

Shizuka ignored them all, and let herself be dragged on through the crushing darkness.

Suddenly, they stopped. Confused, she let herself out of the darkness.

They stood at the docks. Across a mass of people were several large tankers. A queue was forming, slowly but surely.

"C'mon." Kajiki dragged them as far forward in the line as he could get them.

The queue was long. People kept pushing at them, and so they didn't drop their hands. Shizuka shut her eyes again, to try and catch up on her sleep. It didn't work. Katsuya made sure of that.

She stared down the length of the queue. It took them fifteen minutes to move ten metres. She sighed. It was going to be a long day.

-0-0-0-

Mokuba charged out of the car.

"Seto!" He slammed right into his big brother, who smiled and patted him on the head before glaring at Gallagher. Gallagher drove away as fast as he could.

"Goodbye, Mokuba!" called Hopkins, who waved out of the back of the van.

"Bye, Hopkins!" Mokuba waved back. For all her annoyingness, he kind of liked her. He turned to his big brother. "So, Seto, what's the plan?"

"We're going to take a helicopter out. There should be one on the helipad. Come on."

Mokuba nodded, and walked with Seto to the helipad on top of the building. While they walked, Mokuba told Seto about his wilderness adventure.

"And then Hopkins found some insects, and then she said we could eat them, and then I went "No way!", and then she called me a coward, and then…" Mokuba continued chattering as Seto punched in the security code.

"And then I found a millipede, and Hopkins made me eat it. It was vile." He could still taste it. Why, why, WHY couldn't he have found a less insane travelling partner? He kept thinking about this as Seto led him onto the helipad. A small helicopter was there, large enough for two people.

"C'mon." Seto pushed a button on his keys, and the helicopter door opened. He took the pilot's seat, and Mokuba took co-pilot.

After they had both buckled themselves in, Seto made a quick systems check, before pushing down the control stick.

The helicopter rose into the sky, before veering off to the north-east. Mokuba looked down at the wreckage of Osaka and Kyoto.

_I hope Hopkins gets out before the fires reach Kobe._

-0-0-0-

Anzu silently thanked the inventor of the portable CD player.

Okay, it was Shizuka's. But the girl did have some good songs on there, even if they were mostly in English. She trilled along to the lyrics, twisting her mouth around the foreign words. Shizuka was humming beside her. On the other side of her, Jounouchi was whistling something that sounded like rock.

Kajiki alone wasn't listening to anything. He was looking out for the group, as they pushed their way through the crowd. He dragged them forward suddenly, yanking the earbud out of Anzu's left ear.

_Frick._ She groped for the earbud, and shunted it back into her ear. Doing so, she caught sight of a splodge of white in a forest of colour.

_Ishizu?_

She blinked, and the white was gone.

_Must be seeing things._

A few songs later, she heard Kajiki speak.

"The four of us." He motioned to the rest to take out their earbuds. The woman handing out tickets looked at them while not really seeing anything.

"You, Blondie, Lifejacket and Tube Top?" she asked, pointing to each of them. Kajiki nodded, and the woman gave them tickets.

Anzu read hers. _46595-4. _Then some legal blather.

Then Shizuka grabbed her arm, and led her into the mass of people trying to get onto the ships.

The next hour or so passed in a frenzy of pushing and shoving and the sensation of Jounouchi's arm on one arm and Shizuka's arm on the other, as they forged through the writhing sea of people.

Twice she saw a flash of white.

Finally, she and Jounouchi dragged Kajiki and Shizuka into one of the smaller ships, and into darkness that contrasted so hard with the light outside.

The noise was just as loud, though, and the smell grew exponentially. The group pushed through the lower decks and up, and up, until they reached the second-to-highest deck.

There they stopped. Kajiki kicked back against a wall. This high up, the ship had quite a few people in it but wasn't crowded. It seemed like a good place to stop.

It was still dark, and still smelly, though. Anzu checked her phone, and found that it had lost the signal. _Just fricking peachy._

Jounouchi peeked over her shoulder and swore. She punched him.

"Sorry. Sorry." He held his hands up in surrender, before sitting next to Kajiki. "So," he took a finger toy out of his pocket, "what do we do now?"

Anzu flopped down next to him, and Shizuka sat between them. They answered him simultaneously. "We wait."

-0-0-0-

The helicopter flew out of Kobe, rising as it did so. Seto had plotted out a route that would take them to his main base on Shikoku. Soon a panicked cityscape gave way to docks, and then to sea, as far below, the smaller ships set off.

Everyone in the little group, from Shizuka, who had never left Honshu before, to Kajiki, who had – apparently – sailed across the Pacific, went up onto the deck to watch the city slip away.

There were many sighs of relief in a boardroom in Tokyo.

And in the ashes of Osaka…

A ring twitched, and twin streaks of red and gold blazed across the noon sky.

-0-0-0-

Early afternoon, and the Kaiba brothers touched down in Tokushima.

The city didn't have a KaibaCorp tower, for reasons that Mokuba had never understood, but Seto did rent an office block there. On top of the office block was a semi-legal helipad that was really just an H in a circle of chalk.

The workers of the Kobe tower hadn't really taken the escape helicopter plan seriously, meaning that this was as far as it could go before it ran out of fuel. This, Seto claimed, was the only reason that they weren't going further inland.

A flood of workers poured onto the roof, all seeking answers about what had happened in Domino and Kobe and saying that it was so good to see them alive…

Seto glared at them. Mokuba could have sworn that the temperature dropped. Most of the workers stopped talking and shuffled back into the building. The only one who didn't was the one who managed this branch, who was braver than her subordinates and walked across to greet them.

Mokuba unbuckled himself, threw his emergency briefcase out and jumped out. On the other side, Seto stepped out and grabbed his briefcase. The manager stepped in his way.

"Mr Kaiba, Mr Kaiba. To what to we owe the pleasure of this vis-"

Seto cut her off. "My brother and I are leaving this helicopter here. Do what you want with it. Should the police come knocking, it's your problem." He sidestepped the manager and swooped into the building.

Mokuba followed, holding his briefcase over his shoulder. He marched past the manager and followed Seto, keeping as much of a cool image as was possible, given that he'd been living rough for four days.

He hurried through the office building. As he ran, he worried. Where would they go now? What would they do? The mansion was destroyed. There was no reliable way to get food to the Duel Tower. He had a brief vision of himself and Seto on the city streets, as dirty as the average Domino City hobo.

Seto was waiting in the lobby. When he saw Mokuba, he beckoned him close.

"We're going to get a hotel room and see how this unfolds. We will also book a flight to the States."

"America?"

Seto glowered at him. "Mokuba, that was an asinine thing to say. Firstly, I just told you we were going to the States. Secondly, America is the continent, not the country."

"Sorry, big brother."

Seto's expression softened slightly. "We'll go to our home in New York, and help promote KaibaCorp technology. Once this all cools down, we will return to Japan."

He turned and Mokuba followed him out of the building. What had he been worried about, anyway? Seto knew what to do. Seto always knew what to do.

-0-0-0-

It turned out that there was very little to do on the boat. One could do what Kajiki did, which was curl up in a raincoat and doze. One could do what Jounouchi did, which was challenge various people to Duel Monsters. One could do what Shizuka did, which was cluster around a small radio one woman had brought on board and listen for news of one's mother and one's big brother's friends.

Or one could do what Anzu did, which was search for Ishizu in the bowels of the ship.

Not that Anzu knew her that well, but it would be good to find someone else who'd fallen from that blimp.

"Miss Mazaki?"

_Oh, not again._

"You are Miss Mazaki, right?" The speaker was a small boy, who must have come from Domino. Nowhere else would he be let out in public with his bright green hair.

"Yes." _Fricking fanboys._

"Do you know Mutou Yugi?"

"Yes." She'd learnt by hard experience that shrugging them off by lying just didn't work.

"Is he still alive?"

If Anzu had not been extremely busy, or had it not hit a very sore subject, or had she had some proper sleep for the last few days, or had she not already been asked the same question more times than she could count, she probably wouldn't have given the answer she did.

"No," she hissed under her breath.

"Pardon me?"

"I SAID NO!" she shouted at him. "HE'S DEAD! WE THREW HIS BODY IN THE SEA! GO AND TELL THE REST OF THE FANBOYS THAT! YOUR IDOL'S DEAD!"

The instant she finished, she regretted saying it. With nothing else to do and the glares of everyone else on that particular deck on her back, she turned around and marched up onto the next deck.

The thing was, she didn't believe Yugi really was dead. Sure, she knew all about the five stages of grief, denial and all that.

But there was something in her, something that said, loud and clear, that Yugi was still alive. The fact that the Puzzle piece she held was still warm didn't help.

_Come on, brain,_ she half-growled. _Move on to anger already!_ Yet it stubbornly didn't.

She did miss him though, him and Honda, and her parents – _don't think about that_ – and even the Kaibas and Ryuji. She missed all her friends from Domino, Miyuki and Takeda and…

"Anzu?"

Hopkins Rebecca (sans teddy bear) tapped her shoulder. Anzu blinked.

"Rebecca? What are you doing here?"

"Same thing as you. I escaped from Battle City."

"I mean, how did you get out of Domino?"

"I walked." She bit her lip. "I've got some sad news though."

"Oh." Anzu sized up the girl. "Tell it to everyone."

"Everyone?"

"Me and Jounouchi and his little sister and someone else we've met." She started to lead the way back to the top deck, before stopping abruptly. _How do I break this to her?_

"It's alright." She must have seen her indecision. "I know about Yugi."

"Okay." Anzu started walking up the stairs again. "Who told you?"

"Kaiba Mokuba."

"Really?"

And they headed up to the top deck, swapping stories and chatting about nothing in particular.

-0-0-0-

Seto tapped his foot as he waited outside a men's bathroom in Tokushima Airport.

Twenty minutes previously, he had thrown Mokuba in there, with instructions to clean up and change into his spare outfit. Twenty minutes before that, the brothers had arrived at the airport in the city manager's 'borrowed' company car. Twenty minutes before that, Seto had bribed, threatened and bullied his way to two first-class tickets on the next flight to New York City.

Mokuba stepped back out in the kind of clothes an ordinary boy would wear, topped with his bandana. His face was much cleaner, and he'd managed to get most of the twigs out of his hair.

Seto sighed, checked his ticket, and set off to find their gate. Mokuba trailed him, dragging his emergency briefcase behind him.

Everywhere the two of them went, people gave them wide berths. This was partly due to their being a ridiculously tall teenager in a gravity-defying blue trenchcoat and a boy with twigs in his hair dragging an authentic business briefcase, and partly due to the whispers of "Kaiba," that preceded them. Because of this, they made their way to the business lounge without incident.

A crowd of noisy teenagers, most of them female, were being pushed away from the lounge's doors by security. _Brilliant. Just brilliant. There must be a pop star or something here._

Seto had his own share of fangirls, and, as he pushed, shoved and kicked a path through, resolved to never go anywhere without a bodyguard again.

Upon reaching the other side of the scrum, one of the security guards came up to them. "I'm sorry, but the band are very busy and are not to be disturbed."

Seto said nothing, but produced the tickets. The man examined them, before handing them back and letting them through.

Inside, the lounge was pristine and modern. A tinted window filled one wall and overlooked the runways. Mokuba chose seats near the window, before he yawned and dozed off.

_That's right; you've been sleeping rough for two nights now, haven't you, little brother?_ Ignoring the stares from all around him, he took off his trenchcoat and draped it over Mokuba.

Then he took out his laptop. _Might as well take care of business while they ready the plane._

-0-0-0-

The first sign that they were getting close was the greeting party for their seagulls.

An escort of seagulls had surrounded the top deck since they'd left Kobe, and Shizuka, for lack of anything better to do, had named them all. The sight put her in high spirits.

It was too bad she was the only one in them.

Katsuya and Anzu were still reeling from the blow Rebecca had dealt. Shizuka herself had felt sad, but she hadn't really known Grandpa Mutou. Rebecca herself had wandered off to listen to the radio. Ten minutes earlier, she'd brought back the news that Kobe had been destroyed, and that the army hadn't been able to stop it. She'd wandered off after that. Kajiki was now listlessly fiddling with Katsuya's finger toy.

The second sign that they were near a port was the cry of "THE PHONE SIGNAL'S BACK ON!"

Instantly they were rushed by everyone else on the top deck, as they all moved to the side that had the signal. Katsuya had fallen over and Anzu was helping him up, and Kajiki was hitting the speed dial repeatedly.

Shizuka tested her own phone, and speed dialled her mother. Nothing. Just before she switched her phone off, it went to voicemail. It wasn't, however, her regular one.

"Kawai Rumiko here, currently, that is, afternoon of the second of June 2000, stuck on a train halfway between Tokyo and Osaka while the country goes to heck. Shizuka, Katsuya, if that's you, _record a message_. I'll be updating this every evening at seven." The message repeated.

Shizuka babbled their current situation into the phone before turning off. Katsuya patted her shoulder; he was smiling.

Crackling white noise sounded across the deck, and everyone turned to look at the bridge, where a man in uniform spoke into a microphone.

"…Ushima in ten minutes, repeat, we'll be docking in Tokushima in ten minutes…" The rest of the speech was drowned out by cheering.

Anzu danced a victory dance, and Katsuya joined in. Kajiki did freestyle, and Shizuka spun to a fast-paced tune playing on and on in her heart.

The next ten minutes passed in a flurry of packing, and then they stood, ready to greet the world, bags together, Anzu and Katsuya and Shizuka and Kajiki. Together they stepped off the boat.

And then the explosions came.

Over the hordes of screaming people, Shizuka looked to the rest of the fleet and the red hoops and golden bird who were destroying them.

For a moment she locked eyes with the Sky Dragon.

Then it screamed, and every window in the city shattered.

-0-0-0-

Seto brushing glass off his arms, checking to see if Mokuba was all right.

_How dare you hurt what is close to me._

Katsuya flinching from the blast, checking his group to see that everyone was in one piece.

_How dare you destroy what I hold dear._

Looking across a stormy sea, to the creature who had destroyed his life.

_How dare you!_

Anger boiling up in his body, mixed with denial and the urge to protect, but mostly anger, anger at having been chased for so long, anger at the loss of the Duelist King, anger for the sake of it, anger for the sake of defiance.

_HOW DARE YOU!_

Rage striking down to his core.

Smooth white metal.

Deep black fire.

And it all fell into place.

He whipped a card out of his deck. He didn't check which one it was, after all, how could it not be the right one?

He lifted it up to the sky, right in the face of Marik's destruction.

"Redo Aizu."

"Blue Eyes."

Vaguely, he was aware of people staring at him. But that didn't matter. He needed to defend. He needed vengeance.

"Buraku Doragon."

"White Dragon."

He quickly breathed in, ready to give the final surge of power to bring his dragon into the world.

"ARISE!"

-End Chapter-

Cliffhanger!

Aah, Rebecca Hopkins. You're so much fun to write.

Next chapter, the good guys utilise the magic system, and the flight arc ends!

I'd also like to take this opportunity to plug ZeXal. It's not as horrible as everyone's claiming it is. Really. It isn't.

R&R!


	5. 4: Red Eye, Blue Eye

I am still kicking around, baby! Nice try, exams, TV Tropes, Mai-HiME! You'll have to do better than THAT!

This is my longest chapter yet, and includes my longest scene since the prologue. In places it practically wrote itself; in others I had to struggle to get the words out. I have the feeling that this is going to be either my best chapter yet or my worst chapter yet. I'll leave you to judge which it is.

The Enemy Has The Move

Chapter 4: Red Eye, Blue Eye

The Shadow Realm was stirring.

Of course, it had been surging with gossip and speculation since one of its brightest-darkest beacons in the material world had been destroyed, another trapped and two of its greatest taken permanently out to fight. Now, however, some of the lesser ones were being pulled out, and the creatures that roamed it were buzzing with anticipation.

The monster-souls buzzed up and around the two that were being called out. _Where are you going?_ they asked. _Why are you leaving?_

Neither dragon replied; both were too intent on breaking through to the world they had only glimpsed before.

As the two dragons vanished through the whirling portals, some of the crowd went to ask the trapped beacons what was happening. Others waited outside the portals to ambush them upon their return. Still others tried to speak to their beacons, to ask if they, if every monster-soul in the Shadow Realm, was being pulled out.

And one reported these events to its beacon, as it had been ordered to.

-0-0-0-

Metal, pure shining metal, mixed up with electricity and raw emotion, flooded out from Seto's core, through his heart, along his arm, into his hand, and into the card – or maybe it was always there – and then, quickly, impossibly, _out_.

First head then neck then torso and wings then legs then tail, and its slitted blue eyes glowed in the fading light.

Below him the people rushed and screamed, among them beacons, and why were they running, when they could call their warriors? But its beacon wasn't running. Its beacon knew what to do. It turned to face him…

_That's me!_

And he was Seto again, facing the dragon he dreamed of, but in the back of his mind he saw its vision of him, and Mokuba was pulling his trenchcoat, and he could feel that, but he could also feel the wind beneath its wings and the burning beacons of light-darkness…

The dragon spoke.

It wasn't clear, it wasn't words, rather a rush of emotion; concern, curiosity, a request for guidance.

Seto held his head in his hands, and the concern grew greater. "Mmfine," he murmured.

"Seto? Big brother?" Mokuba patted his trenchcoat. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," and he had a mental flash of Mokuba being incinerated. The dragon prodded curiously.

_Let me try this out._ He thought of Mokuba, thought of sheltering him from bullies and Gozaburo, thought of running to rescue him from Pegasus and Malik, thought of his smile deep into the night, thought of the way he smelled and looked and smiled, and of Mokuba's body fading away into golden sparks in the virtual world.

The dragon sent back a mental picture of it in front of Mokuba, blasting away an unseen foe. Seto thought a picture of it blasting the Sky and Sun Dragons.

A shade of doubt flickered through its mind, before Seto gave it the mental equivalent of a growl. The dragon flinched back, as if struck, before flying off to fight. Seto smirked.

As it did, the headache grew worse, and the dragon's feelings grew stronger in his mind, as it flew away from its beacon, and _he was Kaiba Seto, not the Blue Eyes White Dragon_!

_Fly with me._

He was so shocked at the dragon's use of words – actual, human language in a slow, nervous voice –he wasn't prepared when it dragged his soul inside its and all notion of being Kaiba Seto was forgotten, as it soared through the sky to fight the red and gold Dragons, and to defend its beacon and his beacon's beacon.

Back in the shattered airport, Seto collapsed. An attendant ran over to investigate him. She almost had him in the recovery position when she noticed his eyes.

They were slitted, and a bright, glowing, inhuman blue.

-0-0-0-

Anzu watched in awe as the Red Eyes Black Dragon slowly emerged from Jounouchi's card. It flowed out, a river of black scales against the fires at the docks. This was a dream. This _had_ to be a dream. Except it wasn't. A pinch confirmed her instinct.

Around her people stopped in their tracks, staring and rubbing their eyes. As the dragon's shape became clear, some ran, screaming. Still others stood their ground, ready to defend. She stood several metres away, just watching.

_Why are they scared? Red Eyes won't attack them. _She didn't know how she knew this – what if it went rogue? But she did.

"Mazaki?"

She turned; it was Kajiki. He was switching gazes between her and the Red Eyes. "He's not wearing a- What's that on your hand?"

"Hmm?" Anzu lifted her hand up to her face.

She flinched. On her hand were two thick lines, both sparkling a pure white. With a jolt she remembered drawing a smiley face across four hands. "Huh."

"Just huh?"

"I think I've seen this before." And she had, at Duelist Kingdom, out of the corner of her eye, when she and Honda and Jounouchi stopped Pegasus reading Yugi's mind. But she'd written the whole incident off as a dream later, because magic would have complicated her life further and what with studying, dance club, keeping up with fashion, her job and cheer coordination, she hadn't needed more worries.

She surveyed her outfit, most of which had been borrowed from Kajiki. School, dance and work were out of the picture, and as for cheering… _I guess my life could use a little complication._

The dragon's tail flicked out of the card. A jolt of energy ran up Anzu's spine, the marks on her hand glowed brighter, and the Puzzle piece grew painfully hot. She fell down onto her knees as she tried to calm her shaking body. She turned to stare at the marks on her right hand.

Suddenly she was trapped in a deep darkness, the only light her right hand glowing, then she flickered between herself and a great black dragon, the only reminder of herself her right hand glowing, then she was racing down a road, faster than the wind, curiosity piqued by her right hand glowing.

And then she was herself again, staring at the hard road, hands out to catch her, Kajiki waving his hand in front of her face.

"You okay?" She nodded. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

"Five." Whatever talk they would have had next was drowned out by Shizuka's screams.

"ANZU! KAJIKI! HELP!"

Anzu stood shakily. Kajiki was already over to the other two. She herself took her bearings then ran over on unsteady feet to where Shizuka was fussing over a collapsed Jounouchi.

Above them, the Red Eyes Black Dragon flew away.

-0-0-0-

Rebecca Hopkins let the crowd carry her away.

This was the first part of her Big Crowd Contingency Plan. If one got into a big crowd that was going somewhere, it was best to let it carry one along. Check.

The Big Crowd Contingency Plan, however, didn't allow for terrified flight. She needed to think. Clutching her backpack straps, she forded her way through the sea of screaming people, until the throng spat her out through broken glass windows into a reception area. She checked herself for injuries – nothing serious – before mentally reviewing what to do next.

First, the facts. Everyone was running. Fact. A ship had exploded. Fact. There seemed to be a great threat. Fact. She'd lost the UN workers at some point. Fact.

The obvious choice would be to run with the crowd. But, now that there was some distance between her and the whatever-it-was, the logical thing, the sensible thing, would be to take another route out of the city.

She ignored the little-girl voice in the back of her head that screamed about safety in numbers, heaved up her backpack and started searching for another exit.

_WhyDragonSummonBeaconI?_

The thought ran through her head, completely out of nowhere. It sounded like her voice, but deeper, slower. Rebecca stopped in her tracks. _What?_

_OtherDidSummonDragonBeaconUs?_

This second thought had definitely not been hers, and a tingle of fear ran up her spine. _Who are you? What are you? How did you get in my head?_ Other, less urgent, questions, such as _How is this possible?_ were filed away for later. It vaguely occurred to her that it could be a hallucination, but she could think of no direct cause.

_._ The voice paused for a moment. _WhyDragonSummonBeaconI?_

I angel warrior guard arc gracious call answer? How would that random collection of words help? Suddenly it hit her. Arc! Gracious! Joan – the name which at its roots meant 'God is gracious', the name of Joan d'Arc! Angel and guard meant… _You're Guardian Angel Joan!_

_ISo. WHYDRAGONSUMMONBEACONI?_

_All right! All right! Calm down! _She thought for a moment. _Someone's been summoning dragons, correct?_

_ItSo. BlueMetalRedBlaze. Why? NotKnow?_

Blue metal was the Blue Eyes, probably, and thus, Mokuba's older brother. Red blaze… It took her a second to remember the Red Eyes Black Dragon. _Red Eyes, Red Eyes, who has a Red Eyes… _She thought for a while, but no one came to mind.

_BeaconSummonI?_ The Angel sounded exasperated.

Rebecca translated this before replying. _What's a beacon?_

The Angel sounded incredibly impatient. _GoSeaSprayFishSmell. ITell._

_The sea?_

_ITSO!_

Rebecca took off for the docks at a run. It was odd, she mused, that she was running towards a probable danger at the urge of a voice in her head that claimed to be a card.

Then again, she could always turn back.

-0-0-0-

"Katsuya! KATSUYA!"

Shizuka ducked under the unfolding dragon and ran to her brother's side. She'd been standing out of the way and watching the progress of the Sun and Sky Dragons, with one eye on Katsuya.

Then the Puzzle piece in her jacket pocket had burned suddenly, and Katsuya had collapsed onto the hard pavement. She reached his side, and was relieved to see that his head had been cushioned by his arm before falling with not as much force onto the ground. Some hair in front of his face moved slightly, in and out. _He's still breathing. That can only be good._

_What should I do? What should I do?_ Her head ran in circles until she hit a memory. She transferred her Puzzle piece to a trouser pocket and, to the mental voice of her class' first aid instructor, ripped off her jacket and cushioned his head.

_All right, what now? _The teacher's voice vanished – why had she chatted with Miki during that class? She suddenly realised that she had no idea what to do, and because she couldn't help Katsuya would stay down and they'd have to leave him and Marik would come and she and Katsuya and Anzu and Kajiki would…

Anzu. Kajiki. "ANZU! KAJIKI! HELP!"

And they were there. Anzu, holding her head in her hands. Kajiki, looking incredibly weirded out. They got to work quickly, and soon Katsuya was in the recovery position. Shizuka exhaled and checked to see that her brother was alright. She leaned over him.

And saw his eyes. They were open, slitted, and a bright, glowing, inhuman red. Two marks on his right hand shone bright white. She skidded back with a gulp.

Kajiki noticed it too, and said, quite loudly, "Alright, I've waited long enough for an explanation. What. The. Hell. Is. Going. On?"

"YOU THINK I KNOW?" Anzu roared at him. "YOU THINK I HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT'S HAPPENED IN THE PAST FEW DAYS? YOU THINK I KNOW WHY MY BEST FRIEND DIED, WHY MY CITY WAS DESTROYED, WHY MY ONLY SURVIVING FRIEND IS CURRENTLY UNCONSCIOUS AFTER SUMMONING A FREAKING _DUEL MONSTER_? YOU THINK I KNOW?"

"YES!"

Anzu was momentarily caught off guard. "What?"

"You know! You know something! What about the Sennen items I heard you and Jounouchi talking about? What about the dark you kept mentioning? You obviously know something, and I-"

"STOP FIGHTING!"

Both of them turned to look at Shizuka, who stood just between them with her hands out.

"We need to work together," she said slowly and more quietly. "All we have left is each other. We've lost so much, and I for one am not going to lose anything more! We need to stay together! We need to find our way forward together! The enemy isn't each other! The enemy is those giant dragons in the sky there, and my brother is the only one actively attempting to fight back!"

She breathed in to calm herself down. "We're going to fight these dragon monsters. Information would help."

There was a pause, as all eyes fell on Anzu. Ten seconds passed.

"Alright." Anzu took a deep breath. "Here's what I know."

-0-0-0-

Injection Fairy Lily took a report on her beacon back from Guardian Angel Joan.

She brought it to Diamond Head Dragon, acting head of their beacon's monster-souls. She touched the diamond on his head, and the knowledge was dispersed among the group.

Witch of the Black Forest and Fire Princess raced through the ever-shifting black landscape to the portals and the gathering of monster-souls. There they shared their group's knowledge, apart from the parts Diamond Head had insisted stay secret.

And filtering in came other reports, of meeting beacons, of said beacons' confusion, of their refusal to believe, of them not knowing what was happening. Fire Princess hurled herself back to Diamond Head and the rest.

Just after she did so, a small dog was pulled through a portal and into the material world.

It was followed by a giant, a pseudo-fairy and a robotic bicycle.

Witch of the Black Forest, and several others, flung themselves back to their gathering places with reports.

Most of them were following orders, but only in one case had the order come from a beacon.

-0-0-0-

The Blue Eyes White Dragon caught an updraft and soared into the sky. Its wings beat, and it flew towards the enemy.

The Phantom God Dragons whirled in the sky, the two most powerful of all monsters. Why was its beacon doing something so foolhardy, when it could just as easily escape?

_-I am Kaiba Seto, and I've had enough of running-_

It rose higher and higher, above the city, until the figures of the humans vanished, and the only reason it knew there were any creatures below it was the blazing light-darkness of the beacons far below. There seemed to be a particularly large unmoving cluster just below it, that was growing.

Wait, that wasn't a cluster…

A great black dragon, shining from the light-darkness of the beacon it carried, burst through the clouds.

The Red Eyes Black Dragon turned and roared at the Dragons. The Blue Eyes flew up next to it.

_-stupid dog, what's he doing here, he'll just get in the way-_

**-here to fight, here to save my sister and friends, sod off, Kaiba-**

The voice entered its head without any preemption, like when it spoke to its beacon. The dragon wanted to go off and fight, but…

_-useless dog, has to cheat to beat a lackey-_

From far off, the part of the dragon that had been Seto felt the rest of the dragon's urge to do what it had to do.

**-arrogant rich bastard, can't beat Yugi for all your boasts-**

The not-Seto part struggled to pull away. Waves of annoyance at the contrariness of its beacon came off it, until the Seto part stamped down on it.

_-neither can you, little dog, always outshone-_

And the two dragons were circling each other now, claws out at the ready, eyes locked, rage radiating off them, ready to fight.

**-soulless heartless bastard, won't admit to what's right in front of you-**

As one, the two dragons stopped in midair. For a moment, they stayed there, surrounded by sky and clouds and light-darkness and the Dragons.

Then the Blue Eyes tucked its wings in, and charged the Red Eyes, which did likewise. Both switched out sharp claws and began to build up energy blasts.

The Red Eyes took first blood, claws raking along the Blue Eyes' back, drawing silvery blood where it broke metal scales. The Blue Eyes retaliated with a Burst Stream. At this distance, it was impossible to miss and the Red Eyes just about managed to twist its body around to block it with a leg. The Burst Stream roasted the scales on the leg.

The Red Eyes roared with rage and readied a Dark Mega Flare. The Blue Eyes took this opportunity to charge in, claws and teeth at the ready.

And the Sky Dragon roared.

The shockwaves from the roar hit the dragons with the force of a depth charge, flinging them back through the clouds. The Seto part of the Blue Eyes panicked, and the not-Seto part took control, spreading its wings out in an attempt to stop as it was blown through the clouds.

Then it fell below the clouds and caught itself. For a moment it hovered, still in the sky. It turned, and saw the tail of one of the humans' machines. The not-Seto part didn't recognise it. The Seto part did.

The urge to protect filled the dragon, not all of it coming from the Seto part. The dragon took flight again, rose above the clouds and pushed itself towards the Dragons.

Just after it broke the cloud barrier, the Red Eyes Black Dragon did. They, and the beacons they carried, locked eyes for a moment.

Silently, they continued heading to fight their mutual foe.

Their personal feud could resume later.

-0-0-0-

"And that's about it," Anzu finished lamely.

After fifteen solid seconds of silence, Kajiki spoke. "You guys get up to a lot of weird stuff."

She shrugged in reply.

She hadn't told them absolutely everything, of course. She'd glossed over the part about Marik's creation out of respect for the dead, and had skipped most of Yami's shadow games, mostly because she didn't really understand that herself.

But she'd told them all the rest, first the facts, then the dream-that-wasn't-a-dream, then the black globe in Duelist Kingdom, then the events on the blimp. She'd stopped every minute or so so that Shizuka could check on Jounouchi, but that was all.

As Shizuka gave her brother another once-over, Kajiki coughed.

"Um, yeah, sorry for shouting at you. I didn't know your life was a shonen anime."

"I'm not entirely sure if that qualifies as an insult." She paused. "And, sorry."

"Eh, don't worry." He fiddled with a strand of dark blue hair. "No offence from the anime comment?"

"Nope." And she realised that she wasn't offended; that it had been neither insult nor compliment, but a simple statement of fact. "I doubt it'd get big ratings though. All we do is play card games."

Kajiki spread his arms wide, and announced in a big booming voice that would have got curious stares had the harbour not been almost deserted, "Tonight, on, er, Card Game Champs, the finale of the most epic card game this season!" Keeping his pose, he switched back to his normal voice. "Hey, if you do make it into an anime, can I play a cameo?"

From beside them, there came a scream.

It wasn't actually so much a scream as a roar, the roar of a lion – _or a dragon_ – that Jounouchi made. But a scream of pain and rage echoed round and round in her head, and a jet of pain screeched down her leg. She clutched her head in her hands, dimly noticing the ridiculously bright glow.

_-she was flying through the sky, leg on fire, circling the other, the hated, her cold emotionless opposite, and getting ready to attack again-_

"ANZU!"

And now she was slumped over Kajiki, one arm draped over his shoulder, while Shizuka fussed around Jounouchi in the background. The scream had died away, but the accompanying headache had settled itself in.

All of a sudden, a much louder roar swept down on them. Kajiki dragged Anzu down, and Shizuka sprawled herself over Jounouchi. The Puzzle piece burnt white-hot, and the noise filled the whole world.

After ten eternal seconds, the noise stopped. Anzu had spent half of those seconds struggling to remain airborne, and a third of the remaining seconds falling off a road.

She came back to herself slowly, panting like she'd just run the 100 metres. She rolled off Kajiki and slowly but steadily got her bearings. Kajiki did likewise, and Shizuka checked Jounouchi.

"Oh, dear Lord…"

Shizuka beckoned the other two over. "Look at this."

She'd stretched out Jounouchi's leg on the pavement.

It was blackened, as if it had been cooked. Veins stood out, and the skin had bubbled up disgustingly in places. It was a sickening sight.

"What the heck?" Anzu knelt. She tapped it just to make sure it was real, and felt a phantom tap on her own leg. She whipped her leg up and checked underneath. Nothing.

"I-I saw it when Katsuya … made that noise." The girl was shaking now, not that Anzu could blame her. None of them wanted to lose another friend.

_But why? _And she remembered one of her – what should she call them? 'Vision' sounded too poncey. Fighting another dragon in the sky.

_Wait a minute. Another dragon?_

For it was there, the knowledge that she had too been a dragon, black scaled and red eyed…

Suddenly it all made sense.

"Can you see – Anzu, what are you doing?"

Anzu ignored Shizuka and gently placed Jounouchi's right hand on the pavement beside her and laid it out flat. Two lines on it were glowing bright white, and, working from vague memory of the day the madness had really kicked off, laid her right hand opposite.

For a second, the white lines together glowed brighter than the sun. Between them, she could see fuzzy white lines that completed the smile. She had just enough time to chastise herself for not choosing a less cheesy shape before the light filled her vision and swallowed her up.

For two seconds she crawled through a tunnel of pure darkness.

Then she was flying through the evening sky, wings beating, flare ready. She wouldn't go too close to the Sky Dragon, of course. That was suicide. Just blasting it would be fine, and would keep her beacon safe until he saw sense and pulled out.

_INTRUDER!_

And she was hurled back into her own body, mind stinging, head throbbing. It took her a couple of seconds to realise that she was shaking, and another couple to realise that someone was holding her up.

"Anzu. Anzu! ANZU! Are you there?" Shizuka, worried and frightened.

"I'm fine," she replied. At least, that was what she meant to say. What actually came out was "Mrryhngh."

"Can you stand?" That was Kajiki.

"Think so…" She tried to pull herself off him, but couldn't quite summon up the strength. "No."

Kajiki lowered her onto the ground. When he let go of her, her headache started up in earnest. It was a moment before she could squeak out, "What the frick happened?"

Kajiki squatted next to her. "Welp, when you laid yourself down, there was this big flash of light. Really big, y'know? Then you were unconscious, and then Shizuka panicked and got me to drag you off. Well, I just got there, and you went zooming off, and you went right into Shizuka. Next thing I know, you're both flattened. Shizuka wasn't out, but you were, and Jounouchi got thrown out of whack too. I hold you up, Shizuka checks her brother, then comes and checks you. And you know what happens next." He leaned in closer. "What were you doing with Jounouchi?"

"I was trying to see if I could read his mind," she murmured in reply.

"Say what?"

"I TRIED TO READ HIS MIND!"

Kajiki drew himself back suddenly, as if from a rabid animal. After he processed what she had shouted, he replied. "You tried to read his mind."

"That's what I just said," she replied testily.

"Didn't look like it to me."

It took a moment for her to make the connection, but once she did, she turned to yell at him. It was at that precise moment that Shizuka came running over.

"Katsuya's back in the recovery position, how are you – don't tell me you're fighting again?"

As Kajiki protested, Anzu rubbed her head. Her headache seemed to be dying down to what she now considered normal. She tried standing, and, as she did, noticed a girl running towards the docks. It took her a moment to recognise Rebecca.

Wait, Rebecca? What was she doing here? She took a deep breath. Her first try came out as a croak, so she cleared her throat before trying again.

"REBECCA!"

The girl skidded to a stop, before spinning around, catching sight of them, and running towards them.

She was filthy, but then again, so were they. She had twigs and leaves in her hair and around her body. Her hair had fallen out of its elaborate pigtails and was now tied in a ponytail. A backpack swung off her back.

She stopped suddenly, and nearly overbalanced. "Hi," she said, once she could stand up straight.

It was an odd reunion. There were no laughs, or hugs, just a round of "Hi"s and a questioning look at Jounouchi. Shizuka started explaining, while Anzu, for lack of anything better to do, took a good look at her Puzzle piece. It was warm – well, warmer than usual – but not piercing, something's-just-been-summoned hot. It glowed too, an eerie sort of gold.

Rebecca coughed behind her. Anzu jumped and almost dropped the piece. Both her headache and the heat from the piece suddenly grew more intense.

"What do you want?" she growled, turning around while stowing the piece back in her pocket.

"Can you use the Heart of the Cards?"

"No."

"Oh." She looked disappointed. "Just wondering." The girl focused on something behind Anzu. "Kajiki, you see that?"

"Huh?" Kajiki stared for a moment, before his eyes opened in shock. "Anzu, help me, we have to run!"

"What?"

"A ship's coming in!"

"So?"

"People will be on it!"

"And?"

It was Rebecca who spoke next.

"Idiot! They'll come down here, and we'll get stampeded!"

"FRICK!" Anzu sprang into action, before realising what the action was. The immediate choice was helping Kajiki move Jounouchi, so she did this. Shizuka led them, acting as a guide, and Rebecca brought up the rear, occasionally yelling at them to hurry.

Eventually they dumped Jounouchi in an alleyway. After he was settled in, Shizuka started chewing out Kajiki again, and Rebecca sat and shuffled her cards. Anzu, with nothing else to do, laid herself down and watched the sky.

A yellow flash flew right above her. It zigzagged around, as if it was chasing something much smaller than it. If she peered, she could see a fast-moving black blur, bobbing and weaving as it tried to get in a punch.

All of a sudden, she realised that they were the Sun Dragon and the Red Eyes.

Her mind flew back to Shizuka's rant._ He and the other dragon can't do this by themselves! We have to help them. _How could they, though? Kajiki was the only one who played Duel Monsters. Even then, all his monsters were water based, so they would have to get past the crowd…

The crowd.

An idea began to form in her mind. The idea grew into a strategy, the strategy into a plan.

And when she'd formulated the plan into a Plan, she gathered the others round and shared it with them.

After some minor adjustments to the stupider parts of the Plan, they rushed off to implement it.

-0-0-0-

Mokuba fended off questions.

The press had surrounded them as soon as the dragon had left and it was safe to. They'd been asking him what was happening ever since and he could only say, "I don't know, I know nothing about what's happening," and couldn't they see that he just wanted to be alone and figure something out?

And all the while Seto's body lay still, apart from when it had twitched suddenly. The press had moved closer and Mokuba had panicked. Eventually he had stilled again, and the room had returned to its new form of normal.

_I need to sit down._ But they kept asking and asking, closing in and making a tight cage of writhing humanity, where he couldn't escape and Seto wouldn't come and rescue him because now he had been trapped here too…

"Hey!"

And several security guards rushed past. At first Mokuba was relieved, thinking that he had been saved.

Then he saw that they were chasing someone. Through the bodies of the reporters, he saw a small boy with bright red hair gelled into spikes clutching what looked like a deck dash along the hallway, through the door and into the scrum.

"No, sorry, can't tell anything, don't know anythi- STOP PHOTOGRAPHING MY BROTHER!"

"Scuse me, sorry sir, sorry sirs, sorry ma'am, sorry sirs and ma'am, scuse me, it's kinda important..."

The boy pushed out of the crowd and into Mokuba's tiny, shrinking refuge.

"Alright, I'm here, you can stop – is that Kaiba Seto?"

Mokuba growled under his breath.

"Okay, I'll take that as a yes." The kid pushed his way back through the crowd. A minute later, he caught the press' attention.

Suddenly all eyes were on him, and the newshounds started taking photos of him. The kid was unused to such things and chose to ignore them. It had worked in Mokuba's favour, though. Out of the press' eye, he could relax. He sat next to his brother.

_Okay, Mokuba. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out. You are an oasis of calm in a-_

Someone screamed, and both pieces of the Puzzle burned white-hot.

The someone was a camerawoman. It took Mokuba a moment to find what had caused her to scream, but once he did, he wheeled backwards and hid behind Seto.

The man climbing out of the boy's card wore green armour and carried a great sword. The boy himself was unconscious. Troop Commander, Mokuba thought, though he didn't really know much about the card.

The Commander stepped outside of the card, and the pieces reached incredible heat before settling back to normal. It stepped through the crowd of press towards Seto. Mokuba ran in front of his brother, and stood up straight, arms out.

For a moment, he and the Troop Commander stared at each other.

Then it turned to the cracked window, and jumped out.

Mokuba, and a few others, crawled over to the window, and watched it run towards the docks.

Below them, a large red spider climbed out of a card, next to an unconscious twenty-something.

As the Puzzle pieces reached release heat, Mokuba found himself slightly relieved.

More warriors had arrived.

-0-0-0-

"Are you sure this is going to work?"

"No," said Kajiki and Anzu simultaneously. "But it's worth a shot," finished Kajiki, as Anzu sighed and fiddled with her lifejacket – actually Shizuka's, and far too small, but it was the most distinctive thing they had. Rebecca shrugged and said, "It's the only plan we have," a hint of nervousness creeping into her voice.

Shizuka bit her lip. She personally didn't want to go ahead with the Plan. But what she did want to do – find a safe place and rest until this was over – wasn't really viable. And if Rebecca was right…

They stood in a reception near the waterfront, waiting for people to get off the ship. This was for the first part of the Plan. Anzu was scanning the docks with some binoculars Rebecca had brought, by which the Plan meant she tried to spot the captain. Kajiki had placed one of his monsters, and, with Rebecca's help, was working out how to summon it.

Shizuka was in charge of Katsuya, naturally. The Red Eyes had made a couple of passes, and on its last one it had been bleeding. The wound, when it came up on Katsuya, took longer to fade than normal, and she couldn't help but worry.

Her other part in the Plan was as a message passer. As a non-duelist, there wasn't really much else she could do. Anzu had offered her something to do, while Rebecca protested, but she'd turned her down.

"Guys. Boat." Anzu jabbed her finger in its general direction, and they watched the gangway slam down onto the dock. Before the people started rushing, she beckoned them together.

"All sure what we have to do?" Kajiki gave a curt nod. Shizuka nodded slowly. Rebecca saluted.

"Gotcha." Anzu handed Shizuka her binoculars, and waited. As the crowd passed their sort-of headquarters, Anzu dived in. Shizuka fumbled for the binoculars, put them on and focused them. It took her a minute to find Anzu, but once she had it was hard to lose her again. At last, Sakura's crazy fashion choices were actually useful.

They waited and waited, and the docks filled with people, panicking, but ordered to a certain extent. A few came into their building, but they mostly kept themselves to themselves. Shizuka listened to the announcements coming from every sailor in the near vicinity, waiting for the right message.

At last, it came.

"Would Tokiha Ayaka please report to the missing children's post in front of the ship?"

She motioned to the two duelists, who gathered up their cards and ran out of the building, earning stares from the rest of the people. Shizuka put down the binoculars. _Five, four, three…_

The Puzzle piece burned for an instant, cooled again, and burned again.

People started screaming.

And a black – really black, not brown – humanoid jumped into her field of vision.

It turned to look at her, and Shizuka saw that she was carrying Rebecca. The girl was unconscious, and slumped down, holding a card. The humanoid gently lowered her down, and Shizuka ran over, the piece growing hotter as she did.

For once, she actually looked her age; soft and quiet, no longer puffed up in superiority or the semblance of maturity. Just because she was young didn't mean she was light, though, and Shizuka had to drag her over to Katsuya. All the while, the humanoid was glaring holes in her back.

Finally, she lowered Rebecca's arms down next to Katsuya, and turned around to see that the humanoid had gone. With nothing else to do, so she sat and watched.

The people milling around had gone into full-out panic mode. The sailors were trying and failing to keep order. Almost all of them were screaming, and still more ran into their headquarters to hide. Shizuka scanned the crowd with the binoculars for Anzu, but couldn't see her.

Despite all this, she couldn't help but feel calm. The Plan was working, and she'd be safe soon, ready to have a nice warm meal in the next city, take a shower and call Kaname.

Then a fizz and a crackle and a muttered "How the heck do you work this thing?" came from just outside her field of vision.

There were some more fizzles, the sound of a microphone being tuned, and some scuffles before Anzu's voice pounded out from the mike at max volume, loud enough to carry over the screams and the sailors and the occasional roar from what she hoped was one of Kajiki's sharks.

"Anyone here play Duel Monsters?"

Everyone heard it, and the question came from so far out of left field that the rest of the people in the building started up a frantic discussion concerning what she'd actually said. Outside, people did the same, only a little more noisily. A few small children said variants of "I do!", but were quickly drowned out.

"I'll assume the answer is yes. Now, I have a headache so anyone making noise will get eaten by this here shark. The long and short of it is…"

Most people had stopped talking by now, except for the low murmur that always accompanied big crowds. The various whispers of _Mazaki Anzu_ helped. Shizuka checked Katsuya and Rebecca, but they seemed fine.

With a thump the humanoid returned, this time carrying Kajiki. There came screams from everyone else in the building. Shizuka herself waited by Katsuya and Rebecca – there was no way she could be expected to carry Kajiki!

Evidently the humanoid thought otherwise, because it rather unceremoniously dumped Kajiki on the floor before running off.

Shizuka swore and tried to drag him out of the doorway. Emphasis on the tried; he was around twice her weight and impossible to move except inch after inch.

She was considering leaving him there, when there came a cough from behind her. She jumped before swivelling around, seeing a tall woman. The woman smiled.

"Would you like some help?"

Shizuka nodded, and silently thanked whoever was listening for this boon. The two of them heaved Kajiki over to Katsuya and Rebecca. After Shizuka thanked her, the woman stared at both of them, or, more precisely, at the cards they held.

In the almost-silence, Shizuka focused on Anzu's voice again.

"…card up like this, say 'I summon this,' or whatever chant you normally use…"

While someone else filled in the woman, Shizuka grabbed the binoculars again. Somebody should be at least trying to summon.

All of a sudden, the Puzzle piece burned, and she saw a girl wreathed in blue light stand in the air. She jumped, and ran into the sky.

That first monster triggered a whole wave of summons, each heralded by a spike in the piece's temperature until it was all spike and no rest. A fleet of Duel Monsters ran, floated or flew into the sky. She saw Rebecca's black humanoid and Kajiki's shark among them, all heading towards the dragons, all ready to fight. She found Anzu, and wondered if she was imagining the look of triumph on the older girl's face.

In the sky, she saw a flash of red. It looked pitifully small against their army.

For the first time since the dragons had reached Tokushima, Shizuka felt like they stood a chance.

-0-0-0-

Bright light shone in the Shadow Realm as portal after portal tore open, brought out a monster-soul, and sealed themselves shut. Most opened to the same place; a field that smelt of salt and water-spray but had footings of hard rock.

Each and every monster-soul wanted to leave their world of shifting shadow and changing fields, to this other world of solid fields and shining light. They clustered around the portals, waiting for their summons.

Soon enough, a pattern emerged; each beacon would summon only one monster-soul. Outrage flew, and those whose beacons had already summoned either hovered around in faint hope or powered off in disgust. Those who se beacons hadn't flooded their beacons' senses with their will to fight and their suitability.

And one flew off to its beacon, ready to tell it these unexpected new developments.

-End Chapter-

If I made parts of the magic system unclear, please tell me. I'll be happy to clarify and/or explain in a later chapter. Just so you know, every rule in the real world card game has a basis in the system here.

R&R! Please.


	6. 5: Fire In The Sky

Hey! I'm back.

Just so you know, my Marik muse hijacked this chapter at about a third of the way in. He is indirectly responsible for all the stuff that happens after that. ESPECIALLY the thing that happens in the last scene. His fault! Not mine!

The Enemy Has The Move

5: Fire In The Sky

_BURST STREAM OF DESTRUCTION!_

The ball of bright blue sparks shot through the clouds, supercharging every cloud it went through and starting another lightning storm.

It impacted on the scales of the Sky Dragon and fizzed all around the coil it hit. It was the most powerful attack the Blue Eyes could pull off without support or powerups.

Lightning crashed and thunder rumbled. The Blue Eyes shot up into the sky, out of aiming distance if not out of range. Then it waited, hovering in the midst of the storm, lightning crackling below it.

_Three, two, one…_

The Blue Eyes dodged hard to the left.

Just far enough to dodge the Sky Dragon's head as it zoomed up to bite.

Immediately the Blue Eyes dived down hard, hugging the body of the Dragon, setting off smaller Burst Streams every so often. The Dragon's head followed it, but it couldn't bite the Blue Eyes without biting itself. The Seto part of the Blue Eyes congratulated itself.

As it did, the not-Seto part felt the familiar burn of light-darkness get hotter towards its scales. It moved to dodge the Dragon's head, but the Dragon's head wasn't there. It stopped in midair.

Ten seconds later it was shooting through the clouds again, firing and firing, while the maw of the Sky Dragon snapped below it.

_-stupid stupid stupid, why did you let your guard down-_

The Seto part started slowing the Blue Eyes down, to the shock of the not-Seto part. Slower and slower, until it was almost in the mouth of the Sky Dragon…

At the very last second, it swerved out of the dive, hugging the Dragon's body. The Dragon's head snapped, but there was no way it could make a turn that sharp.

The Blue Eyes went back to its usual method – load, blast, dodge when necessary. On and on, with no sign of it working at all. It was going to lose, maybe he should just go get Mokuba and get out while the going was good…

What was that?

The burn of light-darkness increased, and the Blue Eyes shot along the Dragon's body to investigate this new threat.

It was a – the Blue Eyes wasn't sure what it was, but he knew it was level three – and it aimed one of its fire attacks at the Dragon. It barely did anything.

How could something so puny be the source of the incredible heat coming from its direction?

Then a clump of Duel monster-souls pushed their way through the clouds, and all the while, the heat grew.

The Blue Eyes zoomed up and out of the way of the Dragon's head. It took it a moment to realise that it wasn't chasing it.

Instead it was pounding towards the light-darkness.

In the Blue Eyes' mind, something clicked.

The light-darkness shining through the clouds was a horde of monsters, all ready to fight.

_-how dare they, this is my fight-_

But the Blue Eyes didn't really believe that. In its heart of hearts, it knew that reinforcements were its only hope.

It zipped out of the way of the Dragon's head and shot back a Burst Stream. Darts of light shot out from the vanguard of the pack. They seemed to annoy the Dragon more than anything else.

Except for five scales, neat in a line, fried to pieces.

And although the Seto part stayed resolutely pessimistic, both parts of the Blue Eyes swooped in to attack.

-0-0-0-

Anzu dropped the microphone and hopped from the roof of the car she'd been standing on.

When the shock of hitting the ground cleared off, she ran into the greatly thinned crowd, pushing in places but mostly just hopping over the unconscious and dodging those who were standing in shock. At least thrice someone tried to grab her and ask what was going on, but she always managed to shake them off.

She knew she shouldn't have, but she just wanted to talk to someone she knew.

At last, she reached the dock building.

The foyer was packed with rows of unconscious people, and those looking out for them. Anzu stepped over body after body, twisting around so she always had her footing.

"ANZU! OVER HERE!"

Shizuka was waving to her a little way off. She stood in a little clearing in the semi-orderly bunches of people. Anzu made her way over there.

Kajiki, Rebecca and Jounouchi lay in a line, all in the closest approximation to the recovery position Shizuka could do, all with cushions made from jackets under their heads, all holding a card. Another jacket was laid out nearby, a half-eaten cereal bar lying on it.

Seeing the bar reminded Anzu abruptly that she hadn't eaten for hours. Hunger pangs rose up in her, and her stomach growled.

_Food, food, food, what have I got for food… Dumplings? Ate them. Candies? Lost them. Crisps? Got stolen by a seagull…_

"Want some raisins?" Shizuka's voice cut into her thoughts. The girl was holding up a little packet.

"Yespleasethanks." Anzu grabbed the packet, tore it open and poured the tiny fruits into her mouth. They didn't taste great, but they were the only food on offer.

When she finished, she dropped the packet and sat next to Shizuka. "How are they?"

"Fi- Normal." She then proceeded to catch Anzu up on what had happened, to the sound of the older girl's uh-huhs as she tried to think of something to do.

They could wait it out – _dull_. They could hide – _cowardly_. They could cheer – _useless and dangerous_. What could they do?

Her mind pounded around this question. _Okay, okay, don't panic. Stats, stats, think of stats…_

Calm, ordered and unchanging, reciting stats for Duel Monsters was the easiest way for her to calm down. _Okay, uh, Black Magician, attack 2500, defense… Defense… You know this! Defense…_

Not that its defense points really mattered; Yu- most players would defend it with its various support cards.

Inside her mind, something clicked.

She twisted over and grabbed for Jounouchi's deck carrier. None of his most precious cards would be in there, of course, but he would carry some common cards. She pulled out his deck and started flicking through it. _No, no, no, no, no, no, yes!_ She took a deep breath.

"I EQUIP RED EYES BLACK DRAGON WITH CLAW OF HERMOS!"

Nothing happened.

Anzu glared at the card. _WORK, damn you!_

"I equip Red Eyes Black Dragon with Claw of Hermos," she repeated, varying the pitch to no effect.

Part of her just wanted to snap, just to let out all the anger. _Not yet, not yet, how about, uh, English!_

_"I eku-uip se Red Eyes Brack Dragon wis se Craw of Hermos,"_ she said, in slow, horribly pronounced English. Even so, it had to work. It just had to.

"Anzu, what are you doing?" Shizuka had just put down whatever she had been fiddling with and was now glaring at her.

"DAMN YOU! WHAT PART OF 'EQUIP' DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND?"

"Anzu?"

"Aren't I as good a duelist as Jounouchi? Aren't we on the same side?"

"Are you even talking to me?"

"Doesn't this fall under tag playing?"

"Anzu, calm down!"

"I've kicked Jounouchi's ass in a duel more times than I can count, so logically I should be able to summon better than he could even try to!"

"Wait a minute…"

"But, oh no, suddenly because he can do the heart of the cards he can summon, even though he can't duel to save his life!"

"HOW DO YOU KNOW IT DIDN'T WORK?"

The shout threw Anzu off her rant.

"Because," she growled while scrambling for something to say next. After a moment she stopped looking for a snappy remark and thought instead of an honest answer.

"I don't know," she continued in more reasonable tones. "I thought it'd glow or something. Like when you set a card on a duel disk." Another idea hit her. "Give me a minute."

"What are you doing?" asked Shizuka again as Anzu shuffled over to Jounouchi and worked the card into his hand. Holding both the Claw of Hermos and the Red Eyes Black Dragon, just to be safe, she said the summoning chant again. Nothing happened.

"… ip … Aizu … with … mosu …" whispered Jounouchi.

And both cards glowed with golden light. Anzu tore away her hand.

A ray of gold-red light burst out of the cards and flew through the roof. Everyone in the room jumped back. It took a moment for anyone to tear their eyes away from the ceiling.

Anzu's heart was beating wildly. She exhaled slowly.

Shizuka, as well as everyone else in the room (and she could have sworn there'd been fewer when she'd come in) was staring at her. _They want to know what to do next,_ she realised all of a sudden. _But I don't know!_

_Wait a minute. I do. _She grinned.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she said, standing up slowly. "We have a card game to play."

-0-0-0-

With every beat of her wings, Marie the Fallen One left the ground further and further behind.

Rebecca knew this. What she didn't know was her bearing on the whole thing.

Was she pushing through the clouds at an exhilarating speed? Was she lying on her side in a grotty foyer? Was she floating in a deep abyss, but among her true family?

It would have been easier to figure out had she been in one place more than the others, but sometimes she could feel herself wince at the wind coasting down her body and the accompanying surge of adrenaline, and sometimes she could smell the spills in the carpet and feel the choking warmth of the mass, and sometimes she could lose herself in the crushing emptiness were it not for the pure feeling of belonging that buoyed her up.

She couldn't quite initiate the Curious Phenomenon Investigation Plan, though, because that required her to be in a suitable state to investigate. As it was, part of her at the very least was heading into battle, and logically she should focus on that.

Speaking of which…

A furious burn of light-darkness on Marie's end pulled her into the Duel Monster's body. Their thoughts grew closer and closer together until they were almost one. Almost.

A single beat of her wings, and she was hovering in a comparatively clear patch, near the top of a cloud-bound theatre. For the moment, she flew in circles and watched.

Gold light shone as the Sun Dragon spun below her. It filled up most of the stage – probably more, but it was always partially hidden by cloud.

A black blur whipped around it, never stopping, always attacking. Smaller figures seemed to be holding on. The few she could see clearly were either blasting balls of magical energy or stabbing it with supercharged seemingly mundane weapons.

At the sight of this, all plans and strategies flew out of her head. All the thoughts of the world renowned tactical genius and dueling champion vanished. In their place came the thoughts of a scared little girl.

What should she do? What _could_ she do?

In another situation, she might have panicked and run for it. In fact, she almost did. She tried to turn her wings, to get her to get her body and get Anzu and the rest to run, because how could they prevail against that?

_No. BeaconSummonIFight. IFight._

She couldn't. Marie's wings kept circling, and Rebecca found herself trapped in a body she couldn't control.

_BeaconSummonIFight. IFIGHT!_

Slowly, she felt herself getting pushed out of Marie's body and into the abyss. _This is no good, I need to see the battle!_

And suddenly she could. A shimmering silvery screen appeared before her, casting light onto a Marie's-eye-view of the battlefield. She was watching some poor sap climb further up the Dragon's back, only to be knocked off by a swoop of a wing.

Her eyes wandered lazily up, until they rested on the Dragon's head. Like the rest of it, it was completely covered in- wait, was that purple?

Marie flew closer, but still out of noticing range, and as Rebecca started to feel the wind beneath her wings and the strain on her muscles, she saw it was definitely a human.

A human with ridiculous Domino City-grade hair, but a human nonetheless.

And given that they weren't attempting to stab its brains out, they were almost certainly its beacon.

An old saying came to mind_. Marie, we're going to fight._

And as she tucked in her wings and dove down, she held up her hands and started charging a blast.

-0-0-0-

"Just put the card into her hand."

"I tried that," replied the man in an irritated tone.

"Have you tried pressing it against her skin?"

"I- actually, no. Let me try that."

The man was in his twenties, though he looked younger. His nieces, on the other hand, couldn't be older than nine. Both could summon, though, and this meant both were out cold while their monsters fought up above.

He wasn't the only one. To their left a woman holding a baby supervised a row of children ranging from early childhood to late teens, to their right a couple guarding their daughter. It was the kids who played Duel Monsters, always the kids, not the adults who had no patience for what they saw as a passing fad.

And now the proverbial had hit the fan, and the passing fad was all that mattered. Thankful for the ability to do something, the non-duelists were seeking help from duelists who couldn't summon and non-duelists who were familiar with the game. Anzu fell into the former category, Shizuka the latter, and thus the two girls had been dragged out to help.

A golden flash, and a ball of light flew up to where she assumed the girl's monster was. The man nodded to her. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

And with that, he went back to his sisters and Shizuka scanned the docks before heading back towards their base.

It wasn't that she minded helping them, it was that she kept worrying that someone might steal their stuff. Not that this was likely, but you never knew what a fanboy would do.

Then again, most of the fanboys were probably summoners…

"Miss! Excuse me, Miss, could you help us?" It was a woman, probably in her thirties. She was also fidgeting a lot, as if she was in a hurry.

"Have you tried pressing it to their skin?"

The woman looked incredibly confused, before realising. "It's not that, it's-"

"The wounds disappear after a while."

"No, she was acting normally, and then she dropped her card and she started shaking and she hasn't stopped and I don't know what to do…"

"Oh, oh, well, in that case, um, I'll try to help."

The woman looked like she was regretting her choice. _Why did you stutter? And you had such a good thing going too!_

"Come on," she said, and skittered off. Shizuka followed at an almost-run.

Five minutes later, the woman skiddered to a stop. Shizuka did likewise. After the shock of stopping cleared her system, she looked around. Unconscious, unconscious, twitching, twitching, unconscious… Oh.

The small, black-haired girl was shaking, thrashing out every so often, making a furious clicking sound. Her card lay beside her, crumpled and crushed. The nearby summoners had been cleared out and every non-summoner in the surrounding area was watching, but at a distance; none of them wanted to get kicked.

Shizuka watched with the rest of them in morbid fascination, wanting to help but with no idea how to. The girl's mother kept switching glances between her and the girl.

"DRAGONFLY!"

The shout had the kind of tone that can have any words attached and still convey the basic message of 'RUN!'. As such, the crowd had started to break up before anyone realised what the shouter had actually said. When they did, there came confused mutterings.

Then the giant dragonfly dropped into view, and the crowd started running again. The girl crouched into the fetal position.

Shizuka made to run too, but caught sight of the woman trying to pick up her daughter. _You wanted to help; here's your chance!_

She ran over. The woman smiled her thanks and motioned her to pick up the girl's shoulders.

The dragonfly landed right next to them.

Maybe 'landed' wasn't the right word, though; 'crashed' would be more appropriate. It crashed onto the road, skidding into a stop.

On closer inspection, it was bleeding from several punctures and tears. One of its wings had been torn to pieces, and another one had been fried. It was a sorry sight to behold.

It reached a feeler towards the girl. Her mother twisted them around until she was between it and her daughter. Undeterred, the dragonfly limped around her, too close for the woman to turn, and tapped the card with its leg.

In a flash, Shizuka understood.

"Put her down."

"What?"

"It's her monster. Put her down."

The woman glowered at her.

"I'm serious!"

The woman still looked sceptical, but she complied. Once the girl had been lowered onto the ground, the dragonfly spun the card so that it hit one of her arms, before touching it itself.

Gold light flared, and after they blinked away the light, the dragonfly had vanished, and the girl was sitting up, rubbing her eyes.

Then she screamed, as cuts tore open on her back and her legs. They were nothing like what the dragonfly had had, but they were bleeding profusely nonetheless.

The woman ran to her daughter. Various people were creeping back, some clearly revolted at the display, but watching nonetheless. Shizuka ran to help, but someone else got there first.

The man offered her his jacket as a bandage, and someone else threw down a vest. Soon there was a pile of clothing, and at least three people helping bandage the girl.

_She'll be fine now. It's okay. It's okay. You can go._

_If you stay, you'll probably just muck it up anyway._

Shizuka stumbled her goodbyes and started running back.

She tried not to think about this happening to Katsuya.

-0-0-0-

Rebecca's genius plan proved to be easier said than done.

First, there was getting to the head of the beast. Try as she might, Marie's body simply couldn't perform the complex aerobatics required to hug the dragon's body like she'd seen a smaller, black dragon do.

Even then, she'd need to charge up an attack. The problem here wasn't amassing enough energy, it was holding onto a full charge long enough to release it at the correct point.

On top of that, there was the pressure of the crowd to **fight too, you idiot,** and the vague sensation that her flapping was slowing, each new wingbeat taking new strain.

Still, she had to at least try.

Dodge, dodge, dive, duck, undercut, fly out, spin back in…

_Whoomph!_

Get slammed into one of its horns at an ungodly speed. _Ow…_

Shock and momentum wore off simultaneously, and she made a few frantic grabs before admitting defeat and falling, but not too fast to scrabble for one of its scales. The Dragon flipped over about then, throwing her at the other horn, but much closer to the base. Before she lost what could be her only chance, she wrapped her wings around the horn, grasped it with her hands, shimmied up, gripped with her legs and took stock of her surroundings.

She was looking over a little fold in the Sun Dragon's neck, that seemed to be there for the sole purpose of protecting its beacon. And there he (She?) lay, fizzing with golden light every so often but otherwise still.

It was amazing to think that the power source for something this big was so small. He (she decided to use male pronouns for convenience's sake) probably came from Domino, given that hair, and seriously, that cloak was just tacky. But otherwise…

_Could I really kill a human?_

In every half-decent book she'd ever read, the protagonist always had to grapple with this question. Normally, this would be the focus of at least a scene if not a chapter.

Normally, though, the one with doubts wasn't sharing minds with one without any. And, beacon or no beacon, it was still Marie's body.

The synch fell apart, and Rebecca found herself back in the abyss, watching through the silver screen. Not that there was much to see, as, once gathered, the black ball rocketed straight at the beacon. There was no way to miss at this distance.

The ball hit the beacon with the force of a train. Rebecca half-pushed half-dragged herself into Marie, watching in excitement. _That's it, we win, and we're all safe!_

Gold light licked up, clung to the beacon and absorbed the ball. It disappeared, leaving the beacon unharmed.

_Dear sweet lord._

Not only that, but he'd noticed them. A thread of gold-black light whipped out from his hand and tied Marie's wings together. She tried to shuffle up and out, but just couldn't get a grip. Slowly but surely the beacon stood up, and turned to face them.

She wasn't sure if it was the golden knife plastered in dried blood or those horrible dead eyes or the bulging veins or that crazy grin baring just a hint of a fang (and oh God that was bloody too) or the fact that under all the shock horror his (and even now she was considering calling him an it, because there was _no way_ a human being could look like that) face just looked wrong or all of that that triggered her fight-or-flight instinct and dragged her into Marie's body so that their fear circled each other until she was living in a nightmare but she _could do nothing…_

"Don't you even know how to play?"

The voice seemed to come from all around, echoing through her ears, like it was screamed to the rest of the world and yet meant just for her. Dimly, she noticed that the dragon was flying up, and fast.

"Well, then," and he brought up the golden knife, "I'll just have to teach you."

And she didn't know how it had happened, but he had covered the distance between them, and the knife was coming down, and her fear and Marie's fear kept the abyss locked away…

Then the knife came down, and she knew only pain.

-0-0-0-

Anzu was almost back at the building when she heard the screaming.

She pounded into the foyer, over bodies, following the screams. She thought she saw a Duel Monster at one point, but she couldn't be sure.

Then she saw what was happening to Rebecca, and all that flew out of her head.

She was screaming, and bleeding, and all of the stuff that she'd seen happening to summoners whose monsters had been terminally injured. Anzu's mind blanked for a moment. She'd seen it happen before, of course, but not to one of her own. Her mind started reciting her own advice back at her.

_Get her away from everyone else._ She didn't have a snowball's chance in hell of moving Jounouchi or Kajiki, so, whispering soothing words all the while, dragged Rebecca away from the others. She had to kneel beside her to do this, to pull her torso and dodge the flailing limbs, but she did it.

_Find the card._ Plugging her fingers into her ears, she scanned the ground. _No, no, no…_

Someone tapped her shoulder. Anzu swivelled round. A man proffered Fallen Angel Marie (or whatever it was called in America). Anzu took it and nodded her thanks.

She checked Rebecca again. The little girl had stopped screaming, and though she still flailed about it was less pronounced. That only made the blood that seeped out of her body seem worse and worse. _Marie, if you don't get here soon I'll kill you myself, _she thought at the card. Then she tucked it in one of her pockets, and waited.

More monsters flew in, found their duelist and disappeared. Less of them were wounded than before; the majority seemed simply exhausted.

It took a moment for the implications of this to sink in.

She ran to the nearest summoner – a uni student, whose gender was impossible to determine.

"Quickly," she panted into his/her face. "What was happening out there?"

"Hmm?" S/he looked bleary. "We were fighting."

Anzu tried to speak, but her throat cracked up. She gulped and started speaking again. "No, what was happening to the monsters?"

S/he spoke slowly. "Uh, well, first we're all blasting this big red, uh, snake thing, then these two, uh, guys start, uh, fighting, then other people get, uh, caught up in it, and then I'm confused and tired, so I, uh, head back."

"That's what I saw." Another summoner had come over. He was using a backpack as a makeshift sling in a way that was almost painful to look at. "There was a big fight, and the red snake came and blasted everyone." He paused. "I think this white dragon dodged it, but…"

"I was at the shiny chicken," added someone. "We were all fighting it, but then it swooped up, and we couldn't catch it, and then I got tired…"

More and more voices chimed in, each adding their own opinion on the subject. They built up and up into a crescendo until…

"SHUT UP!" Anzu hollered. They did, but she got the feeling it was only because she was in – the higher echelons of Duel Monsters. "Did anyone see a woman with black wings? Looks like," she pulled the card out of her pocket, "this?"

Most of them murmured variations of 'sorry, no,' with a few mentioning seeing her unwilling to fight.

"-tied to the top of the chicken, this guy in purple looming over her, screaming her lungs out-"

As soon as she mentioned the word 'purple' Anzu dashed back to her base.

Shizuka was there, cradling Rebecca in her lap. The girl had all but stopped moving. She looked up to ask Anzu something.

"Marik's got her." Shizuka's eyes widened in shock.

"Can we do anything?"

"I don't think so."

They sat in silence for a moment. Neither of them knew Rebecca that well, but she was twelve years old. Far too young for any of this. Not that Anzu would class herself or Shizuka old enough.

And all the while blood seeped down from her many wounds. She didn't know how much of it was real.

"We should kill her," said Shizuka, softly, as she stroked Rebecca's hair. "I mean, that'd be the right thing to do, right? Nice and quick." She shut her eyes, and tears streaked down her face. "Nice and quick."

Anzu picked the card out of her pocket. She flattened it and looked at it. Its English name was Marie The Fallen One, whatever that meant.

Suddenly, she felt an intense burning rage towards the card, as if it was the source of all her problems. _It's YOUR fault she's at Marik's mercy! It's YOUR fault for not getting her out!_

_I said I'd kill you if you didn't bring her back._ She moved her hands to opposite sides of the card, and started flexing it._ And I meant it._

She ripped the card in half. The break wasn't clean; it verged off to the side, and the area below it was white. She'd got right through the barcode that let it be read by arenas and duel disks, though.

Judging by the bolt of gold light that shot through the ceiling seconds later, passed through the card and flew into Rebecca, causing wounds to slice open and eyes to snap open, it was all that mattered.

Rebecca screeched once before falling silent. Shizuka began using whatever pieces of cloth were available to stop up her wounds. All other eyes fell on Anzu.

"Call me a coward but I'm calling a retreat." People started protesting loudly, but when they realised that she wasn't reacting, they shut up. "Look, the way things are right now if we keep at this we're all gonna die. Get your summoners back, run, hide, just stop fighting. Before Marik pulls a Domino on us, and we're caught in it."

There were angry cries, questions and protests, but she could care less. She shuffled over to Jounouchi, and began trying to sell the idea to a person who was more or less dead to the world.

-0-0-0-

The Blue Eyes aimed for one of the Sky Dragon's eyes.

_BURST STREAM OF DESTRUCTION!_

It missed, and impacted on the scales.

The Blue Eyes flew up and out of the way, then dived back down, before landing on its head. It charged a Burst Stream and missed.

In its heart, it knew it had already lost. The others were only tiny specks, completely and utterly useless. Still, it would go down fighting, and see if it could at least hurt it visibly before it went out. The easiest way to do this would be to hit an eye.

_BURST STREAM!_ And one blast powered through to the pupil.

The Sky Dragon blinked. It looked none the worse for wear.

The Blue Eyes lost itself to rage.

_WHY! _It started firing randomly, not caring where its blasts hit.

_WON'T!_ Just that they hit the Sky Dragon and did something, made that dragon scream for Mokuba's sake.

_YOU!_ But it didn't, couldn't, because the beast couldn't be harmed, it was just too big.

_DIE!_ The Blue Eyes stared into the depths of the Sky Dragon's backup mouth.

More accurately, at the charge building there.

Fear took over from fury, and it dived, down, down, out of the way. The charge went off just to the left of it.

It swerved, and began chasing the dragon.

The Blue Eyes swerved and dodged, flew in circles, zigzagged, anything to get the charge off its tail. When all that failed, it just powered straight down, emerging through the clouds and into the docks.

It all looked so tiny. Tiny buildings, tiny people, like toys, like part of an old train set he and Mokuba had found in an orphanage…

At the last minute, it leaped aside, dodging through buildings as the charge smashed into the docks.

The earth rippled. Buildings tumbled. People were incinerated as the charge slammed in. The Blue Eyes didn't care. It didn't stop moving until it hit the airport.

And there was Mokuba, in front of his face.

His little brother slowly smiled.

"SETO!"

He barrelled into him, rubbing against him, chattering, full of childish joy. Seto (and that was who he was, Kaiba Seto, no matter if he could feel the wind against his scales outside, _this was who he was_) gratefully hugged him back.

He sent a thought to the Blue Eyes. _Are you ready?_ A feeling of affirmation, of readiness, coupled with the urge to just get out of there answered him.

With his brother nestled tightly against his chest, he rolled the two of them out of the shattered window.

Wind pushed against them, wrapping round them. His cloak flew around him, pushing their bodies into a more streamlined shape.

_Whump!_ They hit the Blue Eyes right between its wings. It rocked with them, trying to keep them on. Seto pushed Mokuba off him and yelled at him to just hold on.

Then he found a grip, and another. He checked that Mokuba was equally firm. Staying on would take work, so he started his wings beating before he clenched the scales and even though it hurt like hell he kept doing it as he powered up and out of the city.

He almost outflew the black wave.

-0-0-0-

_Keeper of the Sennen Tauk._

-0-0-0-

The noise filled Shizuka's ears and body and mind and soul, like the wave that had destroyed Domino.

Then the shockwaves hit and she was catapulted into the air.

Wind pushed past her and her hair went flying. Her eyes focused on a card as it burned to a crisp. _Oh. Poor summoner._

Then she hit the ground.

She skidded and slid, managing – just managing – to grab her body into a ball, except her arm – what had happened to her arm? She hit rocks and pieces of pavement, skin tearing up and being battered, and she could smell smoke, and the pain rolled up in a wave to match the black one, overthrowing, overcoming all her senses until she gave in to the blissful darkness.

-0-0-0-

_You have failed in your duty._

-0-0-0-

Anzu grabbed the nearest vaguely solid object, which happened to be Jounouchi.

That was all she could do before the wave hit and she was flying through the air, then skimming the ground but Jounouchi was under her, him taking the worst of the damage from below but all the smoke and embers and ashes and objects smashed into her.

Kajiki's coat finally gave way, leaving her back exposed to the elements. She was fairly sure some of it was on fire, so this was okay. Her back, legs and hair were showered with glass, and the pain screamed so hard it faded into the background. She heard screams from all around.

She was screaming too, she realised, screaming and crying and bleeding and laughing, laughing at how absurd it was, how there was no escape for her or for anyone, laughing at the world she was about to leave. Was this what it was like being Marik?

As Jounouchi slammed into something and she was sent flying, dragged along by the wave, she thought of her parents and Yugi and Grandpa and Yami and Mai and Rishid. They seemed to be waving to her. _Hi. I guess I'll be meeting you soon._

She thought of Jounouchi and Honda and Shizuka and Kajiki and Ryuji and Rebecca. _Bye._

She'd stopped laughing and was now resigned to the inevitable.

_Ciao._

-0-0-0-

_You have proven yourself useless in your current form._

-0-0-0-

Katsuya was flung back into his body with an intensity that hurt. He wheeled his wings around, searching for…

_FOCUS! _He took a breath of smoke-ridden air, swore, pushed himself up and looked around.

It was like a scene from one of the zombie flicks he and Honda had shown on Freak Out Y- Anzu Night. Lots of fire, lots of crashed buildings and shit like that. But the movies didn't mention that you could feel the ash as it landed on your face, could smell the smoke, could hear the screams of those already as good as gone.

He took a deep breath.

"Shizuka!"

Another.

"SHIZUKA!"

He leapt onto a piece of rock.

"SHIZUKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

The dead cityscape was completely Shizuka-free.

The whisper that the wind blew by was incredibly faint, but it was there, and that was all that mattered.

"Ka-Katsuya?"

And as he circled the wreckage on a lucky current, he felt a tiny burning – similar to that of a beacon, but not quite the same. He'd felt it before, but a lot stronger, when he was fighting the Big Chicken.

He pounded through the ruins, following the directions of his dragon (his real, living, breathing (kinda) dragon, but he could throw the I-have-a-dragon party later) over concrete and steel and glass, various wounds in his side smarting like hell.

But he found her.

She was curled up on top of the rubble. When she saw him, she tried to straighten out, wincing. Katsuya stopped her.

"No, no, don't move, don't move." He looked closely at her left arm. He was no biology expert, but he was quite sure arms weren't supposed to bend like that.

"It hurts," she whispered. "Katsuya, I'm scared. What if, what if…" She was crying, or else she had been for a while.

"Don't worry." He started to stroke her back in circles. He'd done this to calm her down when they were little. "Big brother's here, I'll protect you."

"Okay," she said. He couldn't move her, so he laid next to her instead, hugging her, and he kept stroking her, round and round.

In the back of his mind, he dived down next to his beacon, but he was really here now, with his sister.

Katsuya the human and Katsuya the dragon wrapped themselves around her as the fire came.

-0-0-0-

_I bind your soul to the Sennen Ankh._

-0-0-0-

Rebecca lay in the darkness.

It was calm here, and just the right temperature. She'd fled here when the shaking had started using her Marie-trick.

A ripple passed through the darkness, followed by Witch of the Black Forest. She circled her, round and round.

_BeaconRest. _

_Yes._

_BlackWingGone._

_Yes._

_How?_

_She was cut to pieces. _Even with the connection to Marie gone for reasons she couldn't fully understand, she could guess that that was probably what had happened.

_WhyBeaconNotSave?_

_Huh? I… I couldn't._

_NotTry! BeaconNotTry! !_ She sounded furious. Her loops were getting faster and closer, and waves of aggression poured off her.

And she was right. Rebecca hadn't so much as tried to save Marie, let alone anyone else. Wasn't adaptability the mark of a genius? She should have been able to figure out something.

_UselessCHILD!_

The spell ripped apart her chest.

Rebecca gave a scream with her mind that turned into a shriek as she found herself spiralling away, away…

Away.

-0-0-0-

_Guard the treasures that the Court of the King carry._

-0-0-0-

Ryouta's shark rushed back into his card. He had just enough time to swear before the wave barrelled into him.

He was sent flying, but only for a couple of seconds, not like what Mazaki was doing out there. She must have broken the sound barrier, or something.

Then he hit a wall, crashed onto the carpet and rolled down a slope into a burst pipe. The shock of the water stirred him into action, and he quickly sat up.

His head pounded something terrible. Even so, he looked around.

Rubble to the left, rubble to the right, what was left of the building's superstructure forward and above. The roof sloped down, landing just behind him.

There were people all over the floor, some moving, some not. He thought he saw that little American girl whose name he couldn't remember.

Besides, he'd better get out, at least to see what was going on. Maybe get somebody, get a boat and sail for it.

One frantic dig at the sides of the room-ruin-thing debunked that plan. He sat back at his pipe and stared.

There was no way out.

-0-0-0-

_So that we may usher in His reign._

-0-0-0-

Seto clenched his teeth and dug his hands into the Blue Eye's scales. He could feel it digging into his back, but that didn't matter. Only getting himself and his brother out of there mattered.

They were flying all around and about, the Blue Eyes flapping wildly, trying to regain its balance. Neither Seto nor the Blue Eyes knew quite which way up was, let alone whether they were facing it.

As soon as they knew which way it was, they would go there. But for now they were stuck riding a huge black wave, pushing them out to sea at Mach Something. He didn't know, and he didn't care.

This really was taking too long. _Fly._

A jumble of thoughts, mostly on dizziness, but confusion there, too. _I don't care where to, just do it!_

The Blue Eyes slapped out its wings. The wings caught the wave, but before they could be ripped off the Blue Eyes pounded them. Harder and harder, faster and faster, as it struggled to break free.

Until, finally, it did.

It took a moment for it to stop flapping wildly when it realised this. This done, it turned its wings to cruising mode, and took stock of the surroundings. There didn't seem to be much, just clouds and ash and the wave and a blue-black blur…

Seto, Mokuba and the Blue Eyes realised the same thing simultaneously. In fact, as Seto fell through the air, he wondered how it had taken him so long to realise that he had _fallen off the goddamn dragon!_

-0-0-0-

Ishizu Ishtar's dark eyes closed.

-0-0-0-

As soon as Mokuba realised that his brother was plummeting down, he started shouting at the dragon to save him.

He didn't know if it heard him or if that was what it was going to do anyway, but it plunged towards Seto.

Mokuba poked his head up, got a faceful of cloud and wind, and ducked back down. Underneath him, the dragon's body flexed, as it pulled in its wings and gathered speed. He squirmed.

Down, and down… And they cleared the cloud layer and there was Seto, falling below them, no beside them, no above them, looking more annoyed than anything else.

The Blue Eyes braked abruptly. Its wings caught wind and it flew higher and higher; the change was so sudden Mokuba thought he might be sick. It also twisted to horizontal, as if it was waiting for Seto to fall on them.

Seto missed, and fell past them.

The Blue Eyes dived straight down again, but who knew if it would miss again or not? What if Seto… _Don't think about that, don't think about that._

_I've got to do something._ Mokuba let go.

He fell, and slammed right into the dragon's head. Scrabbling and scratching, he twisted around until he was sitting on its neck. The dragon writhed, screeching, but he didn't notice it. He held out his hand.

"SETO!" His brother caught sight of him. His eyes flew wide open.

"Grab my hand!" He leaned over closer. The winds rushed past and up but he kept holding up. It was the least he could do for his big brother.

The Blue Eyes caught up with Seto. Mokuba pushed closer until he was almost falling off himself, and made a grab for Seto's hand. Their fingers met, fluttered apart, met again and clasped, and Mokuba started pulling his big brother in.

It was then he smelt the sea. He looked down through the curtain of the clouds, and saw that there wasn't any, just the sea rushing up to meet them, churning and splashing. He knew he had to get his brother in now, so he tried to push across his other hand.

"DON'T!" Seto shouted over the wind. He hissed something under his breath.

And let go.

It was only then that Mokuba noticed he had almost fallen off himself. Quick as a flash, he grabbed the Blue Eyes' head and pulled himself in.

Beneath him, Seto crashed into the water. From the distance he had fallen, it might as well have been concrete.

-0-0-0-

Isis's orange eyes opened.

-End Chapter-

The answers to your questions are yes, to stop the az- I mean, it was the logical thing to happen, when I finish this, and next chapter.

Of course, this only applies if your questions are "Is Seto really dead?", "Why did you kill him off?" "Are you going to rewrite this to make the inevitable deus ex machina plausible?" and "When is this arc going to end?"

R&R!


	7. 6: Picking Up The Pieces

Hello all! I believe it's been a month and eleven days since I updated last. This chapter's really a winding down chapter - not much happens and it's quite short.

The Enemy Has The Move

Chapter 6: Picking Up The Pieces

Isis stood on top of a ruined skyscraper.

The city was steeped in beacon magic and the power of the Items shone, yet she was the only shadow in this place. She took a deep breath to calm herself – more for her mind, given that she no longer needed to breathe – and scanned the toppled skyline.

In the distance, she saw the bright light of the Dragons, and she knew that _it_ would be there too. _What am I doing here? Why am I doing this? How can I save Malik like this?_

**Silence! **Shadi's voice ripped through her mind.** It does not matter if you cannot, you will bring down the threat to the King!**

_Yes._ She jumped closer to the Dragons. The world faded into mist and reformed around her when she landed. It took her a moment to get her bearings.

When she did, she gasped.

Red rippled, always circling, gold shone, bright as the day, and where the two met, tucked between the wings of the Sun Dragon…

She jumped away, to stand over the sea. Unconsciously she moved to check her shadow jar before remembering that she didn't need it anymore.

What now? She was fairly sure that at least half of the King's Court was here, most of whom carried Puzzle pieces. How would they escape, though?

_Got it! _She reached first for her shadow jar and then for the Ankh. She lifted it up, felt for the shadows within…

And released them.

The seas around Shikoku shone with a bright light. Each and every pair of eyes with a hundred miles turned to face it.

And the Sky and Sun Dragons flew off, to try to claim one of the last of the Sennen Items.

-0-0-0-

"Katsuya?"

"Yeah?"

"Are we dead?"

Katsuya could have lied to his sister, but he didn't really feel like it.

"I don't know."

"Oh."

There wasn't anything else to say, so they didn't say anything else. They just lay there, hugging each other as the ash rained down. The Red Eyes was there too, wing membranes shredded, at least one leg broken, but not down yet.

All three (or was it two) just stayed there, waiting for something to happen, something to break their trance.

Eventually, something did.

The first he saw of the something was a ridiculously bright light, like light off the Big Chicken but bigger somehow, and it smelt like that shadow-artefact his beacon carried around. There was no way this was good. The flash glowed brighter and brighter until it was all he could see, all he could feel, all that he knew.

Then it was gone. Tentatively, he opened his eyes.

Of course, thanks to the superbright light, he couldn't actually see anything yet. He blinked and blinked, until the vague outlines of the world swam back into focus.

The first thing he saw was the dragon. Then he saw the seafront and the ruins all in a red-tinted gaze. He couldn't quite deal with this right now, so he laid out a card – he neither knew nor cared if it was Red Eyes Black Dragon, but judging by the Heart of the Cards it probably was – and mumbled, "Red Eyes, return."

With a flash of golden light, the dragon stepped back into the card. The next thing he knew his leg and his mouth and some phantom pain under his arms were all throbbing like hell.

"It's your dragon's wounds," said Shizuka softly.

"Uh?" He risked a peek down at his legs, and immediately cursed himself for doing so. He still couldn't see properly, but even like this they looked like he'd dragged them through a fire. _Which I guess I did._

"When you recall the dragon, its wounds pass onto you. I'm sorry for not telling you."

"That's okay,"_ even though it was a rather nasty move._

_Wait a minute._

"Shizuka, is it just me, or is the Big Chicken flying off?"

"I don't know, I'm still getting the light out of my eyes."

But as his sight grew sharper, he grew increasingly sure that that was what he was seeing. The Big Chicken was running off lightwards, and the Snake was probably there too.

"Shizuka, can you run?"

"Maybe. Can you?"

_Probably not._ "I think so."

"Why?"

"We're getting out of here, Shizuka. We're getting the hell out of town." He scanned the cityscape. There was a lot more town than he'd thought.

"In any case, we're getting away from the docks." He slowly pulled himself to a stand. He could limp. That was moving.

He knew he should be worried about his leg, and Shizuka's arm, and Mum and Honda and Anzu and Rebecca and Kajiki and all the people Marik threatened, but that didn't matter.

Now, he scrambled over rocks and rubble, glancing back at his sister every so often. All that could wait.

All that mattered now was living.

-0-0-0-

The wave carried Anzu forwards and onwards, up to new heights. She was glorying in this feeling of flight, even if it was so fast. She was going to die anyway, she might as well take what she could.

Things smashed into her, now and again. Once they had been glass and steel and concrete, but now they were wood and leaves and water. Onwards. Up. One last joy.

**ANZU!**

Yugi's scream echoed in her soul.

**Anzu, stop! Don't die! Yami(we/I/) died so that you guys could live! Don't give up now! Please!**

_But what can we do?_ What could she do, really? The wave, it seemed, had run out and now it was purely momentum carrying her. That was good. She'd go soon. _I'll be with you, Yugi. Don't you want that?_

**I… I… But you don't.**

That was nonsense! She'd already been flying for ages – there was no way she could live.

And yet…

The world had become muted at some point; the exhilaration had faded away and even the pain had gone. It was like looking at her body from outside.

The momentum was running out, she noticed. She was going forwards slower as she raced downwards faster and faster.

**What is it you want?** Yami's voice. Maybe Yugi's. It was probably both of them.

Then she was back in her body, racing down, but the exhilaration was gone and in its place pure primal fear blossomed, as she realised that she was going to die and she didn't want to, but she was screwed, screwed, screwed, and the ground was coming up faster, and she was going to splat all over it, and the wind was screaming in her face and her ears and it hurt like frack and…

**You bound yourself to the Puzzle!** Yugi/Yami screeched. **You can call on it!** **Its power will do as you want! **

**All you need to do is decide what that is!**

_I DON'T WANT TO DIE!_

**THEN DON'T!**

Anzu's right hand glowed.

Pure black shadow streaked with shining white and glowing gold erupted from her hand and from the piece of the Puzzle, wrapping her in it until she was completely covered in a pulsing ball of magic.

She hit the ground. Momentum carried her down, pulling her down into the earth. One by one the protective layers stripped off and were whirled away. It thrummed through her body, as the shock hit her hard. Again and again, more and more.

Until she stopped.

She was bruised, battered, cut and even a little burned. But she wasn't dead, not by a long shot.

For a moment she lay in the crater her landing had made, completely still. The next thing she did was retch up what little food there was in her stomach.

Then she dropped off out of pure exhaustion.

-0-0-0-

_No. No! Seto isn't dead. Seto can't be dead! He can't be!_

_He can't be._

But as he lay on the dragon's neck, screaming his brother's name over and over again, staring at the patch of water where Seto had last been, the Blue Eyes circling it, round and round…

_He's not coming back._

_That's bull! Of course Seto wouldn't let something like water kill him, he'd… _Mokuba wasn't quite sure how he'd expected Seto to go out, but he'd assumed there'd be fire involved. Probably a massive volcano erupting in the background.

_And besides, the Blue Eyes is still here! If he was dead, it'd be gone, right?_ That was how Duel Monsters worked, right?

Right?

_Seto… Big brother…_

He reached for the locket under his shirt. As he clutched it, he started crying.

The Blue Eyes White Dragon wheeled around, and headed for land.

-0-0-0-

The shadows rippled, and Rebecca drifted on.

How could she have done this? Couldn't protect her own deck, couldn't command it, couldn't control it – how could she have failed like this?

She waited for a while, but Witch of the Black Forest seemed to have gone away. She could still feel her, though, loud and angry, and frustrated too.

The giant hole in her chest, caused by energy blast after energy blast, would have been a lot worse if she was corporeal. Here, it didn't even hurt.

_Are you a human?_

What was that? Too clear for a Duel Monster, too shadow-laden to be a human. Ripples spread as the creature moved closer.

Rebecca had a plan. Rebecca always had a plan. The Being Approached By Stranger plan said to refuse whatever they wanted and then run when their back was turned. She kicked off and started swimming away.

_Are you a human?_ The shadows swam around and trapped her. She couldn't move, not at all.

As the creature came into view, and she saw the flash of gold, she realised just what was coming next.

The knife came down, and in, and in, and it hurt like nothing she'd ever felt before, and her skin was ripping open. Blood poured out, and was that white bone? But that was better than looking at its mad grin and dark eyes, and the cold knowledge that she was going to die here, alone, in this dark realm, and she was screaming and crying and begging for release…

It slapped her face.

She blinked, and it wasn't it at all, but an albino girl, about the age of Yugi and company, and the gold was a ridiculously flashy dreamcatcher necklace instead of the knife. The other girl swam back.

_Are you a human?_

_Why do you keep asking me that?_

_Well, _are_ you a human?_

_Yes. Why?_

_I wanted to know._

A perfectly logical answer. The two moved closer.

` The other girl started circling, round and round. She was much better than Rebecca, who still hadn't mastered the not-quite-swimming required to move. She pushed herself closer to the other girl.

They circled each other, each caught in the current that the other was making. Rebecca wasn't _happy_, per se, but she was calm. This was good. She needed peace. She needed to think.

Besides, here in the Shadow Realm, there wasn't much else she could do.

-0-0-0-

Ryouta swore (again) and kicked the wall (again) which did nothing except cramp his toe (again).

He glanced at the ceiling. Still stuck under a pile of destroyed tower block. He wasn't dead. Air was getting in. _There is still hope._

_Just not much._

He went all around the wreck again. Nothing. He peeped into all the corners. Nothing. He felt along stretches of the wall, in the hope that there might be a secret panel or something. Nothing. Exhausted from a very long day, he went and sat down by the American girl.

Then the light flooded in.

It was bright gold like the dawning sun, its beams dancing through skylights all around. It was beautiful. He stood up, and tried to see through it.

As suddenly as it had appeared, it faded away, leaving the ruin dark again.

Except for the skylight he now realised he was staring through.

Alternately mentally cheering and cursing himself for missing the obvious, he grabbed a rock and threw it right through. It sailed into the darkness.

Could he fit through there? Probably.

Could he get down from there? He could find a way.

Could he get there in the first place? He eyed the gap between exit and floor. Maybe.

He surveyed the rubble and general mess, and put a plan into motion.

Around an hour of dragging, pulling, pushing and heaving later, a ramshackle pile of stone and metal stood between him and the gap. He tested it with his foot, waiting for it to collapse. It didn't.

He prodded all around, looking out for a safe spot. At last he found a foothold that didn't make the pile wobble nastily whenever he touched it. He scrambled for two handholds, then another foothold. The pile still didn't collapse.

A furious skid up, and he was in the gap, squeezing through.

Then he was out.

Out. Out! Out of that wreck, out of there, outside! Even if it was dark and gloomy and looked like a scene from a disaster movie he was out! He took a deep breath of ash-laden air, coughed, and smiled.

Where to go from here? Ryouta sat down as he realised he hadn't thought that far ahead.

And what about that American girl, eh? She was with him, so he should take her with him. He couldn't just abandon her.

Anyway, when he went to sea (this was and always had been part of the plan; it always was) an extra pair of hands couldn't hurt. He slid through the gap and onto the pile.

It was a lot harder going down this time around. It was stuffy and cold inside, and dark too. He kept losing his footing and slipping around. At last he reached the bottom, and poked around for a tell-tale flash of blonde hair.

There she was! Still down, still out, still wounded, still alive. He picked her up, slowly, carefully, and heaved her onto his back.

The climb back up was harder. He had to carry her straight on his back, clutching at his throat. To stop him choking, he had to hold onto her, leaving him only one hand to negotiate the haphazard pile. It wobbled threateningly all through the climb.

After he pushed her through and worked himself out after her, the tower was still for a moment before collapsing. Ryouta peeked through, and saw the sprawl of building debris and – blood?

Before he could focus and check to see if it was, he flicked his head away. He'd seen blood before. It was nothing big. It probably wasn't even blood, or if it was, it was from someone who'd been in the building when it collapsed. He pulled the girl onto his back again and skidded off the ruin.

Pounding through the streets was a lot like scrabbling over his pile, only he only needed to find footholds, and he could see where he was going a little better. He wasn't really thinking about where he was going, just going somewhere in the hope that somewhere would be the sea.

If he got there? He had an ocean deck. He could work something out even if he couldn't find a boat.

It was all going to be fine.

-0-0-0-

_Jump._

Two little figures, moving slowly across the ruins, each carrying a Puzzle piece. Isis nodded, and mentally recorded them.

_Jump._

A girl lying in the middle of a crater, bloodied, unconscious, and carrying a Puzzle piece. Check.

_Jump._

A dragon speeding across the sky, a small black bundle on its back, not moving at all but carrying two Puzzle pieces. Check.

All present and correct. She could leave now.

_Jump._

One last glimpse at the Dragons…

_Ju- Snk!_

A shadow reached out and bit into her leg. It didn't hurt at all. What it did do was interrupt her jump, so she ended up overbalancing, spinning, and almost falling over, before remembering that she was a ghost now and stopping.

The shadow really was ridiculously weak. She shook it off and got ready to jump. How had it got this far? It was almost like…

A signal.

She whirled around, fully expecting to see _it_ looming over her. Eyes wild, she clutched the Ankh.

Nothing.

Then a fireball slammed into her side.

The fire itself didn't hurt, but it was charged with shadows, and those could hurt a ghost, and she burned and burned and it hurt like hell and her fresh raw ghost senses only made it worse. She screamed, again and again, because how could such torment go on for this long? She should have died by now, yet she couldn't, and was this going to be the rest of her task, burning and screaming?

Just as she thought that the pain would never stop, it did. The fireball vanished, and the shadows with it. She fell to the ground, and panted out of pure reflex.

**What have you done?**

Shadi was there, eyes bulging, looking absolutely incensed. Isis looked up blearily, still quite unable to believe it had stopped. She felt her hand for her neck. Nothing around it, not even the Ankh's cord. Wait…

_Oh, hell._

"You lost the Sennen Ankh," he hissed at her. "You let it be stolen. It has fallen into the hands of the Tombkeeper's leader!"

She had no idea what to say next, so she braced herself for the pain.

Shadi touched her forehead with the Scales. They began to heat up, ready to release the charge.

Hot agony flooded her soul.

-End Chapter-

End arc, too, now that I think about it. I also suck at writing angst.

I'm planning on doing a little flashback interlude thing, but the next real chapter won't be up for a while. My muses are going on holiday and I have an arc to plot.

On a side note, there's now a Progress section on my profile. It's exactly what it sounds like - a progress report for all my stories.

R&R! (Please do. Did I scare everyone off by killing Seto last chapter?)


	8. Ilude: Hiding Spots And Resting Places

Hey! I'm back! Did you miss me?

This chapter's more an interlude than anything else, and is really just setting up plot points for the following arc. Most of the characters who've started their arcs or are just about to start their arcs are here. Seto's is over and Shizuka's won't properly begin until next arc. Enjoy!

The Enemy Has The Move

Interlude: Hiding Spots And Resting Places

Anzu

_A refugee camp in the wilderness of Shikoku._

_Two and a half hours after the battle._

Taiyou was alternately thanking Lady Luck for letting him live with only a forest of cuts to show for it, and cursing Lady Luck for putting him in this horrible situation in the first place.

Just two nights ago, two bloody nights ago, he'd been putting off studying for his degree in favour of partying with his friends. They'd run around Tokushima, doing all the crazy things his mum had made him promise he'd do while he still could.

Now Yuki was missing, Ryu was in the refugee camp's makeshift hospital with a mangled arm, Keiju was barely keeping it together and the only reason he wasn't freaking out about his hometown being destroyed was that the talking playing cards in his head gave him something else to freak out about.

Right now, he was hovering at the border between the hospital at the centre of the camp and the refugee tents. Keiju sat nearby, picking bits off a stick (he claimed it was a distraction.)

They'd pick a camp later, but not now. When they knew whether Ryu would live. When they knew where Yuki was.

When they knew exactly what had happened at the Tokushima docks.

In an effort to keep his mind off the subject, he looked at the track from the edge of the camp to the hospital. Parents dragging child, woman supporting boyfriend, aid workers carrying injured person…

He wasn't a serious duelist, let alone someone who followed the game like it was a professional sport, but he could recognise the girl on the stretcher as the one who'd rallied them at the docks, and even if he couldn't have, he'd probably have recognised Mazaki Anzu by face if not by name.

He jumped and stepped, moving through the mosaic of people until he finally hit the semi-clear track, before pounding down the slope until he reached the aid workers. They tried to stop him, but he ignored them, instead focusing on the girl who couldn't even be out of high school and yet acted like she had all the answers.

"Nnngh… Yugi?" she muttered drowsily. That was proof enough. She was alive. She could answer.

"What the hell happened?" he shouted at her, barely noticing that the aid workers had stopped. She blinked slowly.

"Who…"

"Sir, we're going to have to ask you to-"

"Screw that! Where does she get off recruiting us for her war, eh?" He gestured angrily. "Why can't she fight those bloody dragons herself?"

"Sir-"

He leaned closer to her. "Why us?" he hissed.

She stared back, blinking slowly. "Uh…"

"Sir-"

"See? See?" He turned around. Absently, he noticed quite a crowd had gathered. "She doesn't care about us!"

"Sir," said the aid worker, more forcefully.

"What."

"I appreciate that you're angry at this woman." The worker had dropped the stretcher, while the other one got ready to fend off the crowd if need be. "But don't you think she'll be more able to answer your questions when she's fully conscious?"

"I-" He cut himself off. "That doesn't matter! She pressganged us into her war, and-"

"Sir." The aid worker put a hand on his shoulder. "Calm. Down."

The saner part of his brain overrode the angry part, and he took some deep breaths.

"Fine."

"That's good." The workers picked up the stretcher and moved uphill, followed by the crowd.

Taiyou slipped into it. The workers were right, much as he hated it.

Still, she owed him some answers. She owed everyone answers.

Katsuya

_The ruins of Tokushima._

_Three days after the battle._

Katsuya was back at the docks.

The original plan – namely, get as far away from Tokushima as possible – hadn't worked out. For starters, with one limb each out of action, neither of them could get past rubble with any efficiency. As such, travelling over piles of rubble had become an actual chore rather than a means to an end. In any case, there was food in the city, and both of them were semi-sure Marik wouldn't attack the same place twice.

Then again, for the past two days, the Big Chicken hadn't moved at all. He couldn't be sure about the Sky Snake, which could hide more easily, but the Chicken was a still glint of gold in the sky, visible from all over the city, especially now that the clouds had mostly cleared up.

For the first day, he hadn't cared. He and Shizuka had just managed to live, and they'd had more important things to worry about. On the second, they'd been building a base in a park, or rather monopolising an ex-gazebo.

Three days now. Three days since he'd summoned his dragon. Three days since he'd lost his friends for the second time in how long? He counted on his fingers.

Then he laughed. Loudly. It hadn't even been a week.

Ah, well. Back to business.

"OI!" he shouted, voice hoarse but audible. "MARIK! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

There was no reaction. He hadn't really expected one anyway. With a sigh, he pushed himself off his perch and, keeping one arm on the rubble, started heading back to the park.

In what was starting to be a recurring theme from the past few days, the world exploded.

Or, more accurately, the sky did.

Golden light flushed out, like a net, from all over the sky. It was almost pretty, as it cast its net over Tokushima. Knowing what Marik could and would do, Katsuya ducked behind the nearest large rock and waited for the fire.

He was right about the fire. What he was wrong about was the direction. Instead of igniting the inside, it ignited the outside.

The fire roared across what little land was left in the docks outside of the net, charring it to a crisp. The second it touched the water, it disappeared.

Katsuya blinked. He'd really been expecting something a little more impressive. Marik's last trick had destroyed cities. Was he really down to this? What was the point of marking an inner barrier…

Shit. They were screwed. Well, more screwed than they had been.

He ran off to the park as fast as his injured leg could carry him.

Mokuba

_A cliff in South Korea, overlooking the Sea of Japan._

_A week after the battle._

The Blue Eyes White Dragon watched the sun slowly set, the light catching its scales and setting them ablaze. It had been a long hard flight, but at last it was here.

Here. Where was here?

Automatically, it searched in the back of its mind for its brethren, and the rest of its beacon's deck, to see if any of them knew.

For the thousandth time in the past week, it found nothing.

Nothing. Nothing. No quips from the Dark Clown, no stern advice from Minotaurus, no calm reassurance from the other dragons. Nothing. Nothing!

All it had was scatterings of memories from its beacon, and most of those were no help at all.

Where was he? _Where was he?_ Wasn't it part of the bargain between beacons and decks, that they would provide a link to and knowledge of the material world in exchange for protection? Why had he…

A soft murmur brought its attention back to its beacon's beacon.

"Nnngh… Seto?" The tiny bundle of black shifted about on its scales. The dragon gave a low almost-purr.

In truth, it knew it should despise the boy. Small and weak, no head for tactics, not even a beacon. Simply a waste of space. He slipped off its back, and walked into the dragon's view.

_-little brother, don't worry, I'll protect you, I'll keep you safe-_

Yet, it didn't. Its beacon's memories had mostly been focused around him, and his love for him. Even after his defeat, they still held strong.

The dragon came to the uncomfortable realisation that this little boy, who had absolutely no magic and would be hopeless in a fight, was the closest thing it had to a deckmate.

It yawned. It needed to rest. It had been flying nonstop over the ocean for a day and a half, and while it would need to eat later, that was later. At least there'd be food here, not in the silver field it had last landed in.

Not that it had stayed silver for very long.

As the Blue Eyes White Dragon settled down for a doze, Mokuba watched darkness gather.

In the distance, on the horizon, he saw gold.

Rebecca

_The portals in the Shadow Realm._

_Ten days after the battle._

_WE HAVE BEEN USED FOR LONG ENOUGH!_

The voice pulsed through the hive of monster-souls that had grown around the portals. Everyone heard it, because everyone was there. The portals had lured monster-souls from the depths of the Shadow Realm to assemble here, as the war began.

_Three thousand years. Three thousand years of waiting and watching and taking each opportunity to see the outside._

And because Witch of the Black Forest, unlike the other speakers who had called, actually had something interesting to say, they perked up their ears and listened.

_At last, we have our chance. We have our chance now! We can taste the earth, feel the sea, dance in the wind!_

She called, and they answered. They flocked to her, to hear her speak.

_And yet we can't run. We can't fly! We can't feel the physical world! Why? Why?_

Fire Princess arrayed her sparks and set them off, punctuating her sentences with fireworks.

_Because our beacons still hold us to our contracts!_

The fireworks drew still more in. Light always did that in the Shadow Realm.

_Contracts that WE fulfilled our sides of! Contracts that THEY refuse to uphold!_

The majority passed her speech off as nonsense. They left, and went back to watching the portals.

_Monster-souls have died for beacons who wouldn't pull them out! In return, the only glimpse of the world they got was through the smog of battle!_

But a significant minority listened.

_They haven't upheld their end of the bargain! They never will!_

They understood. They nodded. They agreed. When her fist pumped into the air…

_NOT UNLESS WE MAKE THEM!_

They roared.

Yugi

_?_

_?_

_Are you sure we should have let her go?_

A ripple, and a pulse. A touch.

_The world needs her._

_The world needs _us.

A cautious touch back, soul to soul.

One soul tapping itself?

_Would her fall bring us back?_

_It wouldn't hurt to try._

Wrapping, around and around, two together, one alone.

_Then she'd be here._

_And we'd be there._

_Bodiless._

_But there._

Closer and closer.

_She's our friend._

_We would stay here for her._

_Yes._

Two as one.

_I understand._

_I understand._

Faint white light. Faint gold. Magics mixing and forming around them. Him.

_Do it. Do what I couldn't do._

_Save the world._

-End Chapter-

:rereads: That was... Vaguely cheesy actually, but eh.

It's my birthday come Saturday! I'd like a review.

Bye!


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